GP practices must ‘immediately’ stop using non-sterile PPE gowns made by manufacturer Flosteril after certain batches were found to ‘not meet minimum standards for fluid resistance’.
Practices should ‘immediately’ check their stocks for the Flosteril FLO-MED-8130 gowns, provided as part of the Goverment’s PPE Dedicated Supply Channel for the NHS, said an alert issued by the supply channel.
Any unused gowns must be quarantined – instead of being disposed – and will be collected from 31 August onwards, said the alert.
GPs were warned about the Flosteril gowns in today’s NHS England primary care bulletin after the initial alert was sent by the Government’s supply chain last week to healthcare leaders including GPs, CCGs and primary care networks.
NHS England’s Dr Raj Patel, deputy medical director for primary care, and Ali Sparke, deputy director of primary care strategy, said: ‘Flosteril FLO-MED-8130 non-sterile gowns do not meet minimum standards for fluid resistance.’
The bulletin added: ‘Providers are asked to check their stocks and quarantine any unused gowns.
‘The [alert] is dated 11 August which is when it was originally issued via the PPE supply channel. If providers have already received the alert via another channel and acted on the instructions, then no further action is required.’
The PPE Dedicated Supply Channel alert, sent on 11 August, said if stock was provided by central NHS supplies, recipients must:
‘Check your stock immediately for unused Flosteril FLO-MED-8130 gowns from the SKUs [listed below]; stop using immediately and quarantine any unused gowns; prepare quarantined gowns for collection.
‘Further instruction will be issued in the next two weeks for their collection with a target date of collection to be started week commencing 31 August 2020; do not dispose of the gowns; share this [alert] with anyone you supplied these gowns to.’
The alert said providers should also check stocks for any privately sourced Flosteril gowns but that quarantined stock should be managed locally and returned to the supplier.
This is not the first time GPs have been informed their PPE may be unsafe. In March, Pulse revealed that practices were being sent ‘out-of-date’ face masks with ‘concealed’ best before dates.
The Government later claimed they were safe to use, but by June was alerting GPs to throw away batches of out-of-date face masks distributed to practices, after discovering that they posed a ‘risk to staff’.
Flosteril gown type affected
There is one product affected. Flosteril FLO-MED-8130 Non-Sterile gowns supplied by Vannin Healthcare (VHC) Global.
Packaging for this product may vary.
Affected Product Stock Keeping Units (SKU):
- BWK9877
- BWK9845
- BWK9846
- BWK9847
- BWK9823
- BWK9796
- BWK9741
Supplier: Vannin Healthcare (VHC) Global Flosteril MPC: FLOMED-8130
Source: PPE Dedicated Supply Channel Important Customer Alert
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