UK Covid-19 inquiry: report ‘does not go far enough’ say bereaved families – as it happened

• Lady Hallett “has not gone far enough” in setting out how the UK can improve inequalities that were laid bare during the pandemic, bereaved families have said. A spokesperson for the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK group, speaking outside the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, said: “We, the bereaved families, whose experiences speak to the very heart of what went wrong, are relieved to see many of our recommendations reflected in Lady Hallett’s report, in particular those that address the structures required to ensure that the UK is prepared and resilient to face the inevitable future pandemic.”

• The former health secretaries Jeremy Hunt and Matt Hancock have been criticised for their failure to better prepare the UK for the pandemic in a damning first report from the Covid inquiry that calls for a major overhaul in how the government prepares for civil emergencies. Hunt, who was the health secretary from 2012-18, and Hancock, who took over until 2021, were named by the chair to the inquiry, Heather Hallett, for failing to rectify flaws in contingency planning ahead of the pandemic, which claimed more than 230,000 lives in the UK.

• Keir Starmer said the UK Covid-19 Inquiry’s report confirmed that “the UK was under-prepared for Covid-19” and that policy “failed UK citizens”. The prime minister said in a statement: “Today’s report confirms what many have always believed - that the UK was under-prepared for Covid-19, and that process, planning and policy across all four nations failed UK citizens.”

• The human and financial cost and sacrifice of the coronavirus pandemic “will have been in vain” unless radical change is implemented, Lady Hallett warned. Concluding her statement, she said she expected each organisation responsible for applying her recommendations to set out within six months how it plans to respond. All recommendations must be implemented in order to bring about the changes needed, she said.

• The chair of the UK Covid-19 public inquiry said that one of the first lines of defence in a pandemic is “containment” but a system of test, trace and isolate “did not exist in the UK when the pandemic struck”. Lady Hallett said: “To give but one vitally important example: one of the first lines of defence to a pandemic is containment and this requires a system of test, trace and isolate that can be rapidly scaled up to meet the demands of a major outbreak.”

• The Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association – the hospital doctors’ union – has said “the incompetent lack of contingency planning … [resulted in] countless deaths, the trauma of working in horrific circumstances and lengthy lockdowns” and said it has left an entire generation scarred. In a statement in response to the report, the HCSA president, Dr Naru Narayanan, said: “This lays bare the dereliction of duty at the top in the years leading up to the worst global healthcare emergency of modern times. Complacency in government left us grossly unprepared in the complete absence of any serious planning for a Covid-style pandemic.”

That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, and indeed the UK Covid-19 inquiry live blog. Thank you for following along.

Keir Starmer has said the government will “carefully consider the recommendations” of the first UK Covid-19 Inquiry report.

In a written ministerial statement, the prime minister said:

The government’s first responsibility is to keep the public safe, and as prime minister I am personally committed to each and every family that lost loved ones, and whose lives were changed forever, that this government will learn the lessons from the Inquiry.

This means ensuring that the UK is prepared for a future pandemic, as well as the broadest range of potential risks facing our country. That is a top priority for this government and what everyone should rightly expect from a government working in their service.

The government is committed to working with our colleagues in the devolved governments, mayors and local partners as we carefully consider the recommendations in the report, as their efforts are vital to ensuring the resilience of the whole of the United Kingdom.

I would like to thank Baroness Hallett and her team for their thorough work on this report. The government will carefully consider all of the findings and recommendations of the report in the context of the government’s overall approach to resilience.

In further response from the medical profession, the chairman of the British Medical Association, Professor Philip Banfield, has released a statement which does not hold back on its criticism of the “disinvestment and disinterest in public health” he says took place under the Tories.

“This report reveals in all its true horror how appallingly under-prepared the governments were for the pandemic, that processes failed us as citizens, and that lives could have been saved.

“We knew that when the pandemic began our healthcare services were already struggling to cope and ‘running hot’ because of years of neglect and under investment by the Conservative government.

“This report lays bare how, time and time again, ministers were told that we simply did not have enough staff or resources to cope with the predictable huge surge in demand for healthcare that a pandemic would bring. It shows just how many times governments ignored key findings …

“Many intensive care beds were occupied by the most vulnerable among us – those already navigating long-term illnesses, or those more at risk due to their ethnicity. As the report makes clear, we already had a relatively unhealthy population and widening health inequalities when the pandemic struck, which meant they were the hardest hit.

“This unhealthy population was exacerbated by years of disinvestment and disinterest in public health by the government. The report shows how that disinterest continued, even during the pandemic, when ministers failed to engage with public health specialists and utilise their expertise – particularly on test and trace options.

“A key recommendation in the report is a call for fundamental reform of the way the UK prepares for civil emergencies on the scale of the Covid pandemic and whilst the BMA acknowledges this is the first of many reports and recommendations to come, we hope that change comes soon.”

The Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association – the hospital doctors’ union – has said “the incompetent lack of contingency planning … [resulted in] countless deaths, the trauma of working in horrific circumstances and lengthy lockdowns” and said it has left an entire generation scarred.

In a statement in response to the report, the HCSA president, Dr Naru Narayanan, said: “This lays bare the dereliction of duty at the top in the years leading up to the worst global healthcare emergency of modern times. Complacency in government left us grossly unprepared in the complete absence of any serious planning for a Covid-style pandemic. The false economy of underfunding NHS services left them in the worst possible place in the run-up to 2020.

“Our hospital doctor members, their colleagues, patients and the wider public were all victims of this incompetent lack of contingency planning and effectively left to fend for themselves when the pandemic hit. Countless deaths, the trauma of working in horrific circumstances and lengthy lockdowns have scarred lives and an entire generation as a result.

“The fact is that the next pandemic is a matter of when, not if. Never again can a government be allowed to neglect its responsibility to plan, stockpile and protect its front-line workers and the wider population.

“Baroness Hallett’s recommendations must be implemented in full and without delay. Those responsible must be held to account.”

Elkan Abrahamson, head of major inquests and inquiries at Broudie Jackson Canter, who represents the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group of almost 7,000 members, said:

We are delighted to see that Baroness Hallett has listened and taken on board most of our recommendations to prevent a disaster like the Covid pandemic ever happening again.

However, it is extremely disappointing that the vulnerable were ignored in the recommendations and there were no proposals for dealing with racial inequality, health inequalities or the effects of austerity.

We will be taking this up with the government. We will be going back to the chair in the future to ask her to ensure that her crucial recommendations are carried out.

Lady Hallett “has not gone far enough” in setting out how the UK can improve inequalities that were laid bare during the pandemic, bereaved families have said.

A spokesperson for the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK group, speaking outside the UK Covid-19 Inquiry on Thursday, said:

We, the bereaved families, whose experiences speak to the very heart of what went wrong, are relieved to see many of our recommendations reflected in Lady Hallett’s report, in particular those that address the structures required to ensure that the UK is prepared and resilient to face the inevitable future pandemic.

However, while the inquiry has diagnosed much of what undermined our response, Lady Hallett has not gone far enough in setting out how we can challenge, address and improve inequalities and capacity of public services as opposed to just understanding the effects of these failures.

We ask for this government to produce a plan to address health inequalities and in its first 100 days conduct a cross-departmental audit into pandemic preparedness.

We are also calling for the government to establish a minister for resilience and preparedness. We need somebody with ultimate responsibility for an emergency response who we can hold to account.

Meanwhile, the Green Party warned that the UK “is in an even worse position to deal with a pandemic today” than it was four years ago because of the NHS crisis.

North Herefordshire MP Ellie Chowns said:

Our thoughts today are with the families of the over 230,000 people who have died from Covid-19, the key workers who risked their lives to keep the country going and countless others who had to make terrible sacrifices when Covid-19 first struck.

As this report lays bare the awful truth is that many of those deaths, and the subsequent lengthy lockdowns we had to endure to bring cases down, would have been avoided if better preparation had been in place. We simply can never allow these failures to be repeated.

The lessons of the “systematic and political failings” in preparing for the coronavirus pandemic must be “learnt swiftly”, the Liberal Democrats said.

The party’s health spokesperson Daisy Cooper said:

Today’s damning findings confirm in black and white what we unfortunately already knew.

Our hearts go out to all those who lost loved ones during the pandemic, yet sadly these findings of systematic and political failings will provide little comfort for thousands of grieving families.

Today must be a moment for change. The country was badly let down during the pandemic and this new government must ensure that lessons are learnt swiftly.

The Liberal Democrats called for an inquiry in 2020, and we will continue to demand that the full facts are known about every aspect of this catastrophic failure.

Keir Starmer said the UK Covid-19 Inquiry’s report confirmed that “the UK was under-prepared for Covid-19” and that policy “failed UK citizens”.

The prime minister said in a statement:

The memories brought about by the inquiry will be very difficult for many people. My heartfelt sympathies go out to all those who lost a loved one during that time.

The pandemic showed us that the backbone of Britain is made up of those committing their lives to service - key workers like carers, nurses, paramedics, cleaners and teachers. They put themselves in the eye of the storm, and together with people up and down the country, many of them lost their lives or are still living with the impact of the virus.

Today’s report confirms what many have always believed - that the UK was under-prepared for Covid-19, and that process, planning and policy across all four nations failed UK citizens.

The safety and security of the country should always be the first priority, and this government is committed to learning the lessons from the inquiry and putting better measures in place to protect and prepare us from the impact of any future pandemic.

Key flaws in preparedness highlighted in the report included:

• The UK being prepared for the wrong pandemic: influenza. When Hancock became health secretary in July 2018 his day one briefing said: “Pandemic flu is the government’s highest risk”.

• The institutions responsible for emergency planning being “labyrinthine in their complexity”.

• The government’s sole pandemic strategy (for flu) being outdated – it was from 2011 – and lacking adaptability.

• A failure to appreciate the impact of the pandemic and the response to it on ethnic minority communities, and people in poor health and with other vulnerabilities.

• A failure to learn from earlier civil emergency exercises and disease outbreaks.

• A “damaging absence of focus” on systems such as test, trace and isolate that could be scaled up.

• A lack of adequate leadership in the preceding years, with ministers, untrained in civil contingencies, not being presented with a broad range of scientific opinion. They also failed to sufficiently challenge the advice they got, which in any event was beset by “groupthink”.

The human and financial cost and sacrifice of the coronavirus pandemic “will have been in vain” unless radical change is implemented, Lady Hallett warned.

Concluding her statement, she said she expected each organisation responsible for applying her recommendations to set out within six months how it plans to respond.

All recommendations must be implemented in order to bring about the changes needed, Hallett said.

“Unless the lessons are learned and fundamental change is implemented the human and financial cost and sacrifice of the Covid-19 pandemic will have been in vain,” she said.

“The harrowing accounts of loss and grief given by the bereaved witnesses and others who suffered during the pandemic serve to remind us why there must be radical reform.”

Lady Hallett said that UK citizens were “failed”.

“I have no hesitation in concluding that the processes, planning and policy of the civil contingency structures across the UK failed the citizens of all four nations,” she said.

“There were serious errors on the part of the state and serious flaws in our civil emergency systems. This cannot be allowed to happen again.”

The chair of the UK Covid-19 public inquiry said that one of the first lines of defence in a pandemic is “containment” but a system of test, trace and isolate “did not exist in the UK when the pandemic struck”.

Lady Hallett said:

To give but one vitally important example: one of the first lines of defence to a pandemic is containment and this requires a system of test, trace and isolate that can be rapidly scaled up to meet the demands of a major outbreak.

This did not exist in the UK when the Covid- 19 pandemic struck. The UK government’s sole pandemic strategy, from 2011, was outdated and lacked adaptability.

It was never in fact properly tested. The UK government neither applied it nor adapted it and the doctrine that underpinned it was ultimately abandoned, as was the 2011 strategy itself.

Lady Hallett said there were “fatal strategic flaws underpinning the assessment of the risks faced by the UK.

She said: “The institutions and structures responsible for emergency planning were labyrinthine in their complexity.

“There were fatal strategic flaws underpinning the assessment of the risks faced by the UK, how those risks and their consequences could be managed and prevented from worsening and how the state should respond.”