In March 2020, then Health Secretary Matt Hancock claimed:
“The UK is a world leader in preparing for and managing disease outbreaks and I have every confidence in our nation’s ability to respond to the threat of COVID-19.”
The first report from the Covid-19 Inquiry, led by Baroness Heather Hallett, on the UK’s resilience and preparedness, paints a very different picture. Britain’s pandemic planning was beset with “fatal strategic flaws”, she writes, which failed citizens in all parts of the UK. Over 230,000 lives were lost to Covid, a huge death rate which was among the highest in Europe. Hallett argues that lives could have been saved if the country had been better prepared.
Planning for the wrong pandemic
One of the major flaws identified by Hallett is that the UK was prepared for “the wrong pandemic” – influenza. The government’s “battle plan” to tackle the outbreak was based on existing contingency planning, dating from 2011, which predicted a major flu pandemic.
Two former health secretaries, Jeremy Hunt and Matt Hancock, are named in the report for their failure to update these plans. Hunt acknowledged that he and others “didn’t put anything like the time and effort and energy” into challenging the 2011 strategy; whilst Hancock inherited a flawed system in 2018 but failed to “have these flaws examined and rectified”. Indeed, judging from his comments at the time, Hancock was complacent and arrogant about the UK’s preparedness.
Hallett also argues that ministers failed to learn from previous coronavirus outbreaks in Asia and the Middle East: “a fundamental error”. As I wrote in an early article for Sussex Bylines, countries like Vietnam who had experienced Sars and Mers, had already adapted their pandemic planning as a result and could respond quickly to contain the spread of Covid. Hunt told the inquiry he wasn’t sure why the UK didn’t do the same.
“Labyrinthine” systems led to a lack of focus
Another major flaw pinpointed in the report was the UK’s cumbersome and over-complicated structures to deal with emergencies: the systems flow chart looked “like a bowl of spaghetti”.
This left the government unable to respond to what Hallett calls “whole system civil emergencies” and led to a “damaging absence of focus” on systems such as test and trace, which needed to be scaled up quickly. Although Boris Johnson promised a “world-beating system”, only half of close contacts were reached through test and trace in badly affected areas. The use of private companies such as Serco added to the complications, while, unfathomably, local NHS expertise was overlooked.
Those who bore the cost were the thousands of hospital patients who Hancock returned to their care homes in 2020 without testing – a policy later found to be unlawful; hospital and care workers who experienced shortages in personal protective equipment (PPE); and children who experienced months of closed schools.
In addition, Hallett criticises the fact that preparations for Brexit took up “contingency resources” that could have been used to tackle the pandemic. The report does not dwell on this, but it is an unforgivable shortcoming that pandemic preparations were put on hold to “get Brexit done”. With no trace of irony, Michael Gove tried to make out to the inquiry that Brexit preparations made the UK “match fit” for Covid, whereas then first ministers in Scotland and Wales argued that they did the opposite, hampering pandemic planning.
Health and social inequalities were overlooked
Although the word ‘austerity’ is not mentioned, the report emphasises that the UK entered the pandemic with its “public services depleted, health improvement stalled, health inequalities increased” – a sorry indictment of (then) ten years of Conservative government.
Poverty, obesity and chronic diseases were endemic, so the country as a whole was in bad shape compared to other European countries, giving rise to greater risk to vulnerable groups. A Public Health England report found that black, Asian and other minority ethnic groups (BAME) were disproportionately affected by Covid, and death rates were higher. These risks were not recognised at the time.
The report includes testimonies from groups and communities affected, and Hallett’s findings are broadly welcomed by the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice Group, though they are disappointed that the recommendations do not include proposals for dealing with health and racial inequalities.
Strong recommendations
This is a damning and strongly worded report – the first, with several more to follow. You can feel Baroness Hallett’s anger in criticisms of government for “fail[ing] their citizens”, “dereliction of duty”, “lack of leadership” and “hubris”. The situation was clearly more dysfunctional than many of us even realised at the time.
Ten recommendations include, most importantly, the creation of a “single, independent statutory body responsible for preparedness and response”. Hallett also calls for a radical simplification of civil emergency systems, a new approach to risk assessment and better systems of data collection.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer has made a personal commitment to learn lessons from the report and promised to put better protective measures in place, pledging: “The safety and security of the country should always be the first priority.” He has six months to present a more detailed response and put measures in place.
As Hallett writes in the report’s introduction: “Never again can a disease be allowed to lead to so many deaths and so much suffering.”
CLICK HERE TO DONATE TO OUR CROWDFUNDER
HELP US BECOME STRONGER SO THAT WE CAN CONTINUE TO DELIVER POWERFUL CITIZEN JOURNALISM!
