Miss England 2019 and junior doctor Bhasha Mukherjee has said lack of PPE has led to 18 NHS staff testing positive in one ward in her hospital.

Mukherjee returned to medicine to help fight coronavirus and works at a hospital in Lincolnshire. She has said she is seeing her friends 'fall like flies'.

She told Sky News: "For us what has really been a struggle is morale. We are seeing our collegues, our friends, people we have worked with falling like flies because they do not have enough PPE.

"Just to give you perspective, 18 of the staff members on that [Covid] ward have all tested positive. We've got certain doctors who are critically ill and this shouldn't have happened.

"There are so many nurses and doctors who are currently off work because they've all tested positive because of lack of PPE and lack of understanding on how to execute the safety measures, because there's just so many confusing messages we are being given."

She added she feels there is not enough being done to adequately supply the NHS with PPE.

"You don't hear people going into war without the weapons and I feel like there is just not enough being done. And I understand that the Government are trying but they need to find novel ways, we can't just rely on foreign exports anymore.

"I know there was talk of Turkey sending things in and we can't rely on that. We need to, as a Government, change the way we've been handling things and try to focus on local measures to see if we can employ fashion schools, anything.

"Students even, medical students have come in to help work at the NHS, why aren't we doing that with other industries to get the equipment?"

Supplies, including 400,000 protective gowns, are heading to the UK from Turkey though there is no confirmed date as to when they will arrive.