Military heroes and Royal Navy medics helping treat Covid patients need more protection Labour defence chiefs say

That’s the call coming from Labour defence chiefs as they urged Whitehall to step up tests for Covid-19 and increase the amount of protective gear for the armed forces.

The appeal comes as hundreds of Royal Navy medics - many based at Alverstoke’s Institute of Naval Medicine - are deployed in hospitals across the UK helping doctors to treat those infected with Covid-19.

Meanwhile, many more troops are assisting at critical testing points up and down the country for front-line essential workers.

Former defence secretary Penny Mordaunt, who is now the Britain’s paymaster general, insisted the government ‘must and will do what is necessary’ to protect all those at risk.

But Labour’s shadow armed forces minister Stephen Morgan was concerned Whitehall hasn’t acted quick enough to protect thousands of forces personnel from being infected.

The Portsmouth South MP said: ‘Our armed forces are increasingly playing a major role in the UK’s response to coronavirus.

‘Be it working closely with the NHS, being drafted in to support local resilience forums and performing coronavirus testing, or the Covid Support Force on hand to take action, our armed forces are on the frontline supporting our communities in settings such as hospitals and prisons.

‘At the end of April only 1,222 personnel had been tested for coronavirus – less than one per cent of the UK forces service personnel. That begs the question, why have ministers been so slow to test our troops?

‘The armed forces are delivering for us. Government must deliver for them too with regular testing and proper protections.’

Sources within the Royal Navy have told The News that those medics working at Cosham’s Queen Alexandra Hospital have had enough protective clothing ‘to cope’.

Military insiders have also claimed forces personnel were ‘content’ with the level of testing and the availability of Covid-19 tests.

Portsmouth North MP Ms Mordaunt added the government would do all it can to support forces personnel.

Speaking in parliament, she said: ‘The courage and duty demonstrated by all those working with those infected Is the same as those going into battle.

‘Many will have seen their friends fall ill and some will have seen colleagues die. And they will have headed back into the danger zone day after day...we must ensure that all in the front line of this crisis must have the equipment they need to keep them safe.

‘We are all aware of the challenges, and the efforts being made, but that is irrelevant. We must and will do what is necessary.’

Last month, more than 700 sailors from Portsmouth were tested ahead of the deployment of HMS Queen Elizabeth, with two personnel identified as having been infected with Covid-19.

The aircraft carrier has since spent a planned time quarantined at sea and is this week set to begin critical tests to prepare for her first operational mission next year.

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