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Health secretary Sajid Javid said today (Thursday) he was “not in a position to look back at every decision made” during the pandemic and that this was best left to the upcoming public inquiry.
In an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme he said that he has not read in detail the Commons inquiry report into the government’s handling of the pandemic that was published on Tuesday, but he is sorry for the losses that have occurred.
He also welcomed the report as an important means of providing parliamentary scrutiny.
The health select committee report found the government’s management of the outbreak was one of the worst public health failures in British history.
In the Executive Summary, it said the purpose of the report was not to point fingers of blame but to ensure an accurate understanding of both successes and failures to date so that crucial lessons can be learned for the future.
Main findings of the report
The report from the Health and Social Care Committee and the Science and Technology Committee, draws on evidence from more than 50 witnesses.
Since March 2020 both Committees have been holding separate inquiries and in October 2020, they launched a joint inquiry to consider several key issues that emerged during the first wave of the pandemic and identify what lessons need to be learnt.
It found that initial response to the crisis exposed some major deficiencies in the machinery of government. The structures for offering scientific advice lacked transparency, international representation and structured challenge. Protocols to share vital information between public bodies were also absent.
In the first three months the strategy reflected official scientific advice to the government, which was accepted and implemented. When the government moved from the ‘contain’ stage to the ‘delay’ stage, that approach however involved trying to manage the spread of Covid through the population rather than to stop it spreading altogether.
The Committees said this amounted in practice to accepting that herd immunity by infection was the inevitable outcome, given that the UK had no firm prospect of a vaccine, limited testing capacity and there was a widespread view that the public would not accept a lockdown for a significant period.
Government abandoned social care
Social care failures were also flagged in the report. It said that the government and the NHS both failed adequately to recognise the significant risks to the social care sector at the beginning of the pandemic. Until the social care working group was established in May 2020, SAGE either did not have sufficient representation from social care or did not give enough weight to the impact on the social care sector.
It added that the lack of priority attached to social care during the initial phase of the pandemic was illustrative of a longstanding failure to afford social care the same attention as the NHS. The rapid discharge of people from hospitals into care homes without adequate testing or rigorous isolation was indicative of the disparity.
This, combined with untested staff bringing infection into homes from the community, led to many thousands of deaths which could have been avoided.
In its response to the report, the British Medical Association (BMA) said the way in which the Government abandoned social care, the inadequate provision and supply of PPE, and the lack of proper health risk assessment, especially for black, Asian and ethnic minority staff, forced health and care staff to put their lives at risk to protect their patients.
It added: “The Government must take on board this report’s 38 recommendations and learn from the mistakes it has made, starting now. We are far from out of the woods with the pandemic, with rates of infection, illness and death in the UK continuing to be among the worst in comparator nations.”