NHS procurement official privately selling PPE

I agree with you here. Reading the article he disclosed his position with the nhs multiple times to multiple people. It reads like a smear campaign by a journalist looking for clicks on a polarizing topic and demonizing the idea of making a profit. Hope this guy comes out alright.

It's an abuse of his position, and is incompatible with nolan principles of public office, and almost certainly incompatible with his employment contract.

> That article states that "he is a head of procurement for the NHS in London" (the italicisation of "a" is mine). What does that even mean?

"The NHS" doesn't exist. It's made up of clinical commissioning groups and local NHS Trusts. These are all separate organisations with their own boards of directors. For London we have this list (and this isn't including MH trusts) https://www.england.nhs.uk/london/ccg-trust/

A head of procurement could be working for any of those organisations (unlikely to be a CCG though).

I think the story is that he's a government official, presumably operating on inside information. Thus it's a conflict of interest.

If I'm an official charged with managing public health, and I use my early/special awareness of a virus to stockpile medical supplies, I see that a basically insider trading.

You're also glossing over the fact that his job was head-of-procument. So there's no way that privately procuring PPE didn't conflict with his job of professionally procuring PPE for the government. The fact that he chooses to lie about it presumably shows he knows it's wrong.

Not sure how you could see this as non-firable, potentially criminal.