LAST UPDATE | 18 Jul

THERE WERE “SEVERAL significant flaws” in pandemic planning in the UK before the outbreak of Covid-19, according to the first Covid-19 inquiry report. 

UK Covid-19 Public Inquiry chair Baroness Heather Hallett said that UK citizens were “failed”, saying that the she had “no hesitation” in concluding that the processes, planning, and policy of the measures to address the pandemic “failed the citizens of all four nations”.

The Inquiry is an independent public inquiry examining the response to, and the impact of, the Covid-19 pandemic to learn lessons for the future. 

Its work is divided into separate investigations known as modules. Each module is focused on a different topic with its own public hearings where the Chair hears evidence. Following hearings, recommendations for changes are developed and put into a module report. 

Hallett made 10 recommendations in the Inquiry’s first report, which is titled “Resilience and Preparedness (Module 1)”. Future reports will focus on other areas, including vaccines and therapeutics, the care sector, and children and young people.

The report found that the UK government’s “outdated” pandemic strategy, which had been developed in 2011, was not flexible enough to adapt when faced with the pandemic in 2020. The planning documents were “unnecessarily bureaucratic and infected by jargon”.

It said that despite planning for a flu outbreak, the UK’s “preparedness and resilience” was not adequate for the global pandemic. Emergency planning was complicated by the involvement of many institutions and structures, the report identified. Hallett said that there were “fatal strategic flaws” underpinning the assessment of the risks faced by the UK.

“If we had been better prepared, we could have avoided some of the massive financial, economic and human cost of the Covid-19 pandemic,” the Inquiry said. 

A “lack of adequate leadership, coordination and oversight” in the years leading up to the pandemic was highlighted.

There was a “damaging absence” of some of the tools needed to combat a pandemic threat, including measures, interventions and infrastructure. A system of test, trace and isolate which could be scaled up in the event of a pandemic “did not exist in the UK”. 

It noted that there was a failure to fully learn from past civil emergency exercises and outbreaks of disease. It also pointed to Ministers not receiving a broad enough range of scientific advice – and often failed to challenge any advice that they did get. 

Advisers lacked “freedom and autonomy” to express differing opinions, which led to a lack of diverse perspectives on the situation, the report said. 

The report “therefore recommends a major overhaul of how the UK government and devolved administrators in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales prepare for whole-system emergencies”. 

Includes reporting by Press Association.