The Chair of the UK Covid Inquiry, Baroness Heather Hallett, has published her second report which concludes that the response to the pandemic by the United Kingdom’s four governments was often a case of ‘too little, too late’.
The report, ‘Core UK decision-making and political governance’ (Module 2), also concludes that while the various lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 undoubtedly saved lives, they only became inevitable because of the acts and omissions of all governments. The devolved administrations were too reliant on the UK government to lead the response.
Baroness Hallett is calling for the prompt and thorough implementation of 19 key recommendations. The recommendations must be considered during the development of all future pandemic preparedness strategies.
They include the need for urgent reform and clarification of the structures for decision-making during emergencies within each of the four governments.
Other key recommendations include ensuring that decisions and their implications are clearly communicated to the public – laws and guidance must be easy to understand. There should be greater Parliamentary scrutiny of the use of emergency powers as well as improved consideration in an emergency of the impact that decisions might have on those most at risk.
Baroness Hallett said: “Today I published my second report. It follows an investigation into the responses of the four governments of the UK to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“In early 2020, Covid-19 was a novel and deadly virus spreading rapidly around the country. All four governments failed to appreciate the scale of the threat or the urgency of response it demanded.
“When they did realise the scale of the threat, politicians and administrators in the UK government and the devolved administrations were presented with unenviable choices as to how to respond. Whatever decision they took there was often no right answer or good outcome. They also had to make decisions in conditions of extreme pressure. Nonetheless, I can summarise my findings of the response as ‘too little, too late’.
“The Inquiry has therefore identified a number of key lessons learned to inform the response to a future pandemic. In all, I make 19 key recommendations that I believe will better protect the UK in any future pandemic and improve decision-making in a crisis.”
Module 2 of the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, the second of its 10 investigations, focuses on the UK’s governance and political decision-making during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Its investigation covers the actions and performance of the UK government in Westminster, as well as the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the focus of Modules 2A,
Module 2 report: Key findings include:
• All four governments failed to appreciate the scale of the threat or the urgency of response it demanded in the early part of 2020.
o This was compounded, in part, by misleading assurances from the Department of Health and Social Care and the widely held view that the UK was well prepared for a pandemic.
• By the time the possibility of a mandatory lockdown was first considered, it was already too late and a lockdown had become unavoidable.The lockdowns in 2020 and 2021 undoubtedly saved lives, but only became inevitable because of the acts and omissions of the four governments.
• The UK government introduced advisory restrictions on 16 March 2020, including self-isolation, household quarantine and social distancing. Had restrictions been introduced sooner, the mandatory lockdown from 23 March might have been shorter or not necessary at all.
• This lack of urgency and the huge rise in infections made a mandatory lockdown inevitable. It should have been introduced one week earlier.
o Had a mandatory lockdown been imposed on or immediately after 16 March 2020, modelling shows that in England alone there would have been approximately 23,000 fewer deaths in the first wave up until 1 July 2020.
• When entering the first lockdown, none of the four governments had a strategy for when or how they would exit the lockdown. None of the four governments gave enough attention to the possibility of a second wave, meaning there was very little contingency planning in place.
• None of governments in the UK had adequately prepared for the challenges and risks of a national lockdown. They did not scrutinise sufficiently seriously its wider societal, workforce and economic impacts, in particular, the impact on the vulnerable and disadvantaged and impact of school closures on children’s education and their physical and mental health.
• The Inquiry rejects the criticism that the four governments were wrong to impose a mandatory lockdown on 23 March 2020. All four governments received clear and compelling advice to do so. Without it, the growth in transmission would have led to an unacceptable loss of life. However, their failure to act promptly and effectively had put them in this position.
• They all must now learn the lessons of the Covid-19 pandemic if they are to avoid lockdowns in future pandemics.
Vic Rayner, CEO of National Care Forum commented: “The publication of the Covid Inquiry’s Module 2 report into political decision making during the pandemic has found that the government did ‘too little, too late’. It has also uncovered that older people and disabled people, amongst other groups, were not adequately considered in pandemic planning or decision making.
“The evidence I gave as a core participant in module 6 of the Covid Inquiry hearings asserted that ‘the UK government did in fact receive a huge amount of information and expertise that NCF and our members provided repeatedly directly from the frontline of delivery which highlighted in real time the risks facing social care and support services’.
“We were also clear in our evidence that ‘throughout the pandemic response there was a concerning lack of understanding of adult social care by policy makers leading to an unhelpfully narrow public policy and resource focus on care homes for older people, with little consideration of the breadth and diversity of care and support settings and services. As a direct consequence guidance and policy created during the pandemic were marked by a lack of understanding of the diversity of adult social care and support services and the people using those services’”.
“The failure to listen to representatives of adult social care providers, or to involve adult social care provider experts in advisory bodies and key-decision making moments, had devastating consequences and we must never allow this to happen again. ‘Too little, too late’ represents lives that could have been saved if advice and expertise provided to government by those at the frontline of care and support delivery was listened, especially in the early days of 2020.
“While the report focuses on the core political and administrative decision making in the UK in response to Covid, it’s important to remember the amazing work of our not-for-profit members and their care and support workers. They provide an essential public service and enable people of all ages and all circumstances to live good lives, alongside the communities and people they love. The care they provide is the backbone of many communities, families and local economies as well as wider wellbeing and population health – we forget that at our peril.”
