Covid Inquiry: Government “Ill Prepared” and “Failed Public” Findings Reveal
The UK government and every devolved administration ‘’failed their citizens’ by being ill-prepared for the Covid pandemic according to the distressing first conclusions of the ongoing public inquiry into the pandemic.
The Chair, Baroness Hallett, made clear there was a failure of leadership across the board, however named two former health secretaries, Matt Hancock and Jeremy Hunt in her summary.
There were over than 235,000 deaths involving COVID-19 throughout the UK up to the end of 2023 and the report published today (July 18) says some of the “financial and human cost may have been avoided” had the country been better prepared for the catastrophic outbreak in March 2020.
Despite warnings of the potentially devastating impact of Covid-19 on care homes, the first wave of the pandemic saw an extraordinary number of excess deaths among residents
The then government’s policy of discharging untested patients into care homes from hospital in England at the start of the Covid pandemic was ruled unlawful by the High Court, and in January this year research led by Northumbria University academics revealed the impact of moving patients from hospitals to care homes, leaving staff traumatised and distressed, and feeling powerless to stop the spread of Covid-19 as it tore through care homes, leaving dehumanised residents feeling ‘imprisoned’ and some facing death in isolation.
During the first peak of the coronavirus pandemic – between March and June 2020 – more than 66,000 people died in care homes, with a third of those deaths attributed to Covid-19.
Today’s report is the first of nine reports to be published by the UK COVID-19 Inquiry and examines the state of the UK’s structures and procedures in place to prepare and respond to a pandemic, detailing “several significant flaws” including preparing for “the wrong pandemic”.
Baroness Heather Hallett has called for “radical reform” making a series of recommendations:
In summary her recommendations are:
- A radical simplification of the civil emergency preparedness and resilience systems. This includes rationalising and streamlining the current bureaucracy and providing better, simpler Ministerial and official structures and leadership;
- A new approach to risk assessment that provides for a better and more comprehensive evaluation of a wider range of actual risks;
- A new UK-wide approach to the development of strategy, which learns lessons from the past and from regular civil emergency exercises and takes proper account of existing inequalities and vulnerabilities;
Better systems of data collection and sharing in advance of future pandemics, and the commissioning of a wider range of research projects; - Holding a UK-wide pandemic response exercise at least every three years and publishing the outcome;
Bringing in external expertise from outside government and the Civil Service to challenge and guard against the known problem of ‘groupthink’; - Publication of regular reports on the system of civil emergency preparedness and resilience;
- Lastly and most importantly, the creation of a single, independent statutory body responsible for whole system preparedness and response. It will consult widely, for example with experts in the field of preparedness and resilience and the voluntary, community and social sector, and provide strategic advice to government and make recommendations.
Lady Hallett has called for urgent and “fundamental reform,” warning of overwhelming evidence that another pandemic, which could be even more transmissible and lethal, is likely in the near to medium future.
“It is not a question of ‘if’ another pandemic will strike but ‘when’,” she cautioned, calling on the government to place preparations for another health crisis in the same way we would with defence planning for potential war.
“The primary duty of the state is to protect its citizens from harm. It is, therefore, the state’s duty to ensure that the UK is as properly prepared to meet threats from a lethal disease as it is from a hostile force. Both are threats to national security,” she said.
And yet the UK was “ill prepared” and “lacked resilience,” Lady Hallett’s report reveals, highlighting that public services including health and social care were running close to, if not beyond, capacity with a slowdown in health improvement and widening health inequalities.
“The Inquiry has no hesitation in concluding that the processes, planning and policy of the civil contingency structures within the UK government and devolved administrations and civil services failed their citizens.”
Lady Hallett, who has listened to more than 100 hours of evidence, travelled the country, received 20,000 responses to a consultation, and whose team has scoured 103,000 documents, said the UK believed it was one of the best prepared countries in 2019.
“In reality, the UK was ill-prepared for dealing with a catastrophic emergency, let alone the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic that actually struck.”
Lady Hallet said there had been a failure within the planning to account for pre-existing inequalities and deprivation, and to appreciate the impact of such a crisis on ethnic minority communities and others with poor health or vulnerabilities.
Adding: “The Secretaries of State for Health and for Health and Social Care who adhered to the strategy, the experts and officials who advised them to do so, and the governments of the devolved nations that adopted it, all bear responsibility for failing to have these flaws examined and rectified.
“This includes Mr Hancock, who abandoned the strategy when the pandemic struck, by which time it was too late to have any effect on preparedness and resilience.”
“Today the Inquiry has published its first report after examining the resilience and preparedness of the United Kingdom to respond to a pandemic. My report recommends fundamental reform of the way in which the UK government and the devolved administrations prepare for whole-system civil emergencies.”
“If the reforms I recommend are implemented, the nation will be more resilient and better able to avoid the terrible losses and costs to society that the Covid-19 pandemic brought.”
!I expect all my recommendations to be acted on, with a timetable to be agreed with the respective administrations. I, and my team, will be monitoring this closely.”
Dr Alan Wightman from North Yorkshire, lost his mother in early-May 2020 to Covid-19 that she had acquired in her care home in Fife, Scotland.
He said: “My Mum was an 88-year-old widow, a dementia sufferer and a cancer survivor. She had been settled and looked after in her well-run home for 11 months before Covid got in, despite the best efforts of the staff. A number of the home’s residents were taken by Covid.”
“I congratulate Baroness Hallett and her Inquiry team for reaching this substantive milestone of issuing findings and recommendations from Module 1. To be at this point a mere 13 months after witnesses started giving evidence in this Module is very impressive. To have achieved that whilst simultaneously completing Module 2 and its three satellite Modules, plus having Module 3 ready to launch within the next three months, is truly exemplary.”