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Comment by teh_klev | Hacker News Reader

Is there really a story here? It's not like he's stealing and selling from the NHS's own stockpile.

By all accounts he's maybe doing a good thing by connecting smaller PPE vendors to customers. From what I've read (and know first hand), smaller suppliers find it notoriously difficult to break into NHS procurement.

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?

Sounds more like a guy who's doing a bit of business on the side and Guardian haven't really shown conclusively that there's a conflict of interest.

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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.

> So there's no way that privately procuring PPE didn't conflict with his job of professionally procuring PPE for the government

Would it be possible that the trust had all the PPE it needed and therefore there's no conflict of interest? Not every trust is lacking PPE. If he then trades in it he's not conflicting at all with his main employer.

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