Covid inquiry: UK government failed its citizens through “groupthink,” poor planning, and widening inequalities

Widening inequalities

The report emphasised the significant role played by the nation’s poor health and the state of the NHS before the pandemic.

“Going into the pandemic there had been a slowdown in health improvement, and health inequalities had widened. High pre-existing levels of heart disease, diabetes, respiratory illness, and obesity and general levels of ill health and health inequalities meant the UK was more vulnerable,” Hallett said. “Public services, particularly health and social care, were running close to if not beyond capacity in normal times.”

In response, the BMA’s chair of council, Philip Banfield, said this state of affairs was the result of “years of neglect and underinvestment by the Conservative government.”

He said, “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,” he said.

Banfield added that the government’s lack of interest in investing in and valuing public health before 2020 continued into the pandemic, as “ministers failed to engage with public health specialists and utilise their expertise—particularly on test and trace options.”

“There must be radical reform”

In light of the findings, Hallett has set out eight recommendations—including the creation of an independent statutory body—that she said could be “implemented swiftly and at reasonable cost.” These include radically simplifying the civil emergency preparedness and resilience systems, a new approach to risk assessment that evaluates a “wider range of actual risks,” a new approach to developing strategies that take “proper account” of existing inequalities and vulnerabilities, and better data collection and sharing systems.

The UK must also carry out a statewide pandemic response exercise at least every three years and publish the outcome.

Regular reports on the system of civil emergency preparedness and resilience should be published too, while external expertise (outside the government and civil service) must be brought in to “challenge and guard against the known problem of groupthink,” the report said.

“In my view all the recommendations must be implemented in order to produce the changes that are necessary,” Hallett said. “The UK will again face a pandemic that, unless we are better prepared, will bring with it immense suffering and huge financial cost, and the most vulnerable in society will suffer the most.”

She said that her team will be liaising with and monitoring the government to ensure progress is made. “I will expect each organisation that is responsible for implementing my recommendations to set out within six months how it plans to respond,” 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.”

Responding to the report, a spokesperson for the group Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK said that Hallett had not gone far enough with her recommendations on “how we can challenge, address, and improve inequalities and capacity of public services as opposed to just understanding the effects of these failures.”3 They added, “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.”