At a preliminary hearing for module five in December, the inquiry's senior counsel Richard Wald QC said the inquiry team did not consider it was "generally necessary to seek evidence from individual companies about specific offers of PPE" in order to conduct an effective investigation.
Bereaved families have accused the COVID inquiry of "protecting" PPE suppliers from public scrutiny after saying it did not need to hear evidence from them to "investigate this issue thoroughly".
But the inquiry concluded it did not need to hear evidence from suppliers in order to investigate the issue as "its focus is on how the government responded to suppliers' offers".
A spokesperson for the UK COVID-19 Inquiry told Sky News: "The UK COVID-19 Inquiry is starting four weeks of detailed oral evidence for our fifth investigation, Procurement.
Module five of the inquiry aims to analyse the procurement of PPE (personal protective equipment) when the country was struck by the global coronavirus pandemic back in March 2020.
