WATCH: “We’re scared” due to lack of PPE, says Labour MP and carer

Nadia Whittome has said that she and other frontline carers are “scared” because of the lack of personal protective equipment being provided to them by the government as they continue working throughout the Covid-19 crisis.

In an interview with BBC Newsnight on Thursday, the Labour MP and carer told viewers that she and her colleagues “don’t feel as though our government is keeping us safe because there isn’t enough PPE”.

Whittome explained that care workers are using homemade equipment that people have donated, and that the masks provided are “not the right masks”. She added that staff are expected to use one of these for a whole day.

She added: “The government has been slow to lockdown, slow to order PPE, slow to test. Meanwhile they’ve bailed out in a single day private train companies, so what does that tell you about where their priorities are?”

Whittome returned to her pre-parliamentary role as a care worker following the outbreak of the virus in the UK, warning that “the care system is in serious danger of falling apart” during the crisis.

The 23-year old Labour MP for Nottingham East said she would be donating her salary from the part-time role at a retirement village to a local coronavirus support fund.

Trade unions and the Labour Party have been calling on the government throughout the crisis to intervene urgently to provide the protective equipment to workers in the care sector.

The total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in the UK has now reached 138,078 – but with low levels of testing the true figure is thought to be much higher. There have been 18,738 recorded hospital deaths from the virus.