The UK’s citizens were “failed” by their governments’ processes, planning, and policies ahead of the COVID-19 pandemic, a public inquiry has found.
There were more than 235,000 deaths involving COVID-19 in the UK up to the end of 2023. A report published today states that some of the “financial and human cost may have been avoided” had the country been better prepared for the deadly outbreak in 2020. It is the first of several reports to be published by the UK COVID-19 Inquiry after the first of nine modules examined the state of the UK’s structures and procedures in place to prepare for and respond to a pandemic.
The 83,000-word document details “several significant flaws,” while the inquiry chair, Baroness Heather Hallett, is calling for “radical reform” as she makes ten recommendations, including a major overhaul of how the UK government prepares for civil emergencies. The inquiry also pointed to “significant flaws,” including preparing for “the wrong pandemic.” “Never again can a disease be allowed to lead to so many deaths and so much suffering,” Lady Hallett writes in an introduction.
Speaking after the report’s publication, she said: “I have no hesitation in concluding the processes, planning, and policy of the civil contingency structures across the UK failed the citizens of all four nations. There were serious errors on the part of the state and serious flaws in our emergency systems. This cannot be allowed to happen again.”
Key recommendations include a radical simplification of systems, holding a UK-wide pandemic response exercise at least every three years, and the creation of a single, independent statutory body responsible for the preparedness and response of the whole system. The inquiry received 103,000 documents, 213 witness statements, and heard from 68 witnesses for the first module in June and July last year.
The report states the UK “lacked resilience” in 2020 and was “ill-prepared for dealing with a catastrophic emergency, let alone the COVID-19 pandemic that actually struck.” A slowdown in health improvement, widening health inequalities, and high pre-existing levels of long-term illnesses such as heart disease and diabetes made the country “more vulnerable,” while public services were “running close to, if not beyond, capacity,” it says.
The inquiry heard evidence on the potential impact of austerity measures, and while recognising the pressure on politicians to make tough decisions over the allocation of resources, the report says: “Proper preparation for a pandemic costs money.” “The massive financial, economic and human cost” is proof money spent is “vital” and “will be vastly outweighed by the cost of not doing so,” it adds.
“Significant flaws” highlighted include preparing for “the wrong pandemic,” with the focus on a flu pandemic “inadequate” for the global pandemic that struck, the inquiry found. The report also says the institutions and structures responsible for emergency planning were “labyrinthine in their complexity,” while the UK’s sole pandemic strategy from 2011 was “outdated and lacked adaptability” and was “virtually abandoned” on its first encounter with the pandemic.
“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,” it says. While this may be the first report of many to come from an inquiry expected to last at least four years, it is perhaps the most important.
Of the catalogue of failures, flaws, or missed opportunities that played out during the pandemic, many stemmed from the UK’s lack of a plan and resources to deal with an inevitable threat. Perhaps inquiry chair Baroness Hallett’s most damning conclusion is that in 2019 the UK believed itself to be one of the countries best prepared for a pandemic. Back in 2010, David Cameron’s government set up a National Security Council with responsibility for biological threats like pandemics. Plans were made, exercises across Whitehall were conducted, and stockpiles of medicines and PPE were established.
But what COVID taught us – through 230,000 deaths, two million more living with long COVID, families destroyed, and around £370bn in costs to taxpayers alone – is that plans and preparations were totally inadequate. There’s no doubt COVID blindsided scientists. Previous coronavirus outbreaks were very different in terms of the way the disease behaved. The focus on plans for an influenza pandemic is understandable – it was, and remains, one of the gravest pandemic threats we face.
But what this report has found is even the lessons learned from planning for the wrong pandemic could have improved the response to COVID had they been properly acted on and shared beyond central government. The fact, for example, that those with physical or learning disabilities, pre-existing conditions, those in ethnic minorities, or living in deprived areas would be disproportionately affected. The fact that social care, particularly care homes, would bear the brunt of a respiratory virus’s harm – and a huge surge in resources there would be needed in the event of a pandemic.
These issues, which were central to the loss of life and suffering caused between 2020 and 2022, were known. Just some of the “fatal strategic flaws” in assessing risks to society before the pandemic, according to Baroness Hallett. Her recommendations hope to ensure we are significantly better prepared in the future. Ensuring a single cabinet-level committee responsible for civil emergencies like pandemics seems an obvious and sensible step, and whatever strategy is put in place is reviewed at least every three years, along with rehearsals for a pandemic.
But also, whatever they learn or conclude should be informed by and shared with local authorities, voluntary, and community organisations to ensure Whitehall plans work in the places where the harm is greatest – as cruelly demonstrated by COVID. What the chair of this inquiry wants to see – echoing calls from other recent inquiries like that into the infected blood scandal – is some mechanism that requires governments to act. The economic and political landscape is in constant flux, but so too are the deadly pathogens that mutate and spread in an increasingly connected world. Implementing the lessons learned from the COVID pandemic isn’t just necessary; it’s urgent.
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