Closing summary
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.
