UK - Baroness Hallett begins Covid public inquiry

The BBC understands that Baroness Hallett, a former High Court judge and crossbench peer is expected to chair the Covid inquiry into the government’s handling of the pandemic.

The announcement could come as early as this afternoon. Baroness Hallett presided over the inquests into the deaths from the 7/7 terror attacks, and was the first woman to chair the Bar Council.

The inquiry is expected to start in the first half of 2022.

Its remit has yet to be announced, but it will cover the whole UK.

Interesting … perhaps … :069:

Seems to be highlighting the potential losses to the pockets of our entertainment industry.

Never a day goes by without some reference to how hard it is for them.

They don’t say much about the loss of lives or the damage to the Families.

Which is most important, a life, or a few million into their profits (maybe from our taxes)?

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I hope the investigation covers the fact that elderly patients were released from the hospital beds to make way for covid sufferers straight into care & rest homes without having any form of Covid test at the beginning of the pandemic.
Resulting in thousands of unnecessary deaths.

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Boris Johnson has announced the launch of the Covid public inquiry and finalised its terms of reference. Sessions will take place across the UK from next year as it aims to identify lessons from the government’s handling of the pandemic. The announcement comes days after bereaved families warned they could take legal action against the government over delays.

Inquiry chair Baroness Hallett said the hearings would be “firmly independent”, with reports issued regularly. More details about the next stages of the inquiry will be set out next month, the former High Court judge said. She said her team would travel around the UK to hear people’s experiences.

Baroness Hallett will also examine how Covid affected different categories of people, its effect on bereaved families and how the findings could be applied to other national emergencies. She said a “listening exercise” was scheduled for autumn to allow anyone who wanted to share their experiences to do so.

In a letter to Baroness Hallett, the prime minister said he accepted “in full” the terms she had set out for the inquiry, calling them “broad and challenging”. He said he would appoint two more panel members to the investigation in the coming months so it has “access to the full range of expertise needed”.

The inquiry’s aims include:

  • Listening to the experiences of people affected by Covid by travelling across the UK
  • Making the inquiry open, fair and balanced
  • Publishing regular reports on the progress
  • Preventing suffering and hardship in any future pandemic

It will look at how decisions on limiting the spread of Covid were made and communicated, the use of lockdowns and face coverings, the impact of the pandemic on children and health and care sector workers and the protection of the clinically vulnerable.

Hannah Brady, spokesperson for the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice campaign, said the launch was “a special day for bereaved families from all corners of the country” and hoped “our awful experiences are learned from”. But she said it was “pitiful” that the investigation was launched two days after the campaign group said it was considering a judicial review over “time wasting”. “It goes to show that the government were simply delaying the process for as long as they could get away with,” she added.

Several reports have already put the UK government’s handling of the pandemic under the spotlight.

In total more than 179,000 people have died in the UK within 28 days of a positive Covid test. But the number of people with Covid on their death certificates is more than 196,000.

It’s unlikely that any report will highlight BJ’s indifference to the onset of the pandemic - he preferred to shack up with Ms Symonds at Chequers to attending COBRA meetings. How much emphasis is placed on BJ’s procrastination and subsequent prevarication is also open to question. There is no question about his decision to release infected elderly patients back into care, though - thousands of unnecessary deaths resulting from that decision couldn’t be hidden. The government’s incompetence, profligacy and corruption have all been documented by critics and, of course, the PM has a criminal record. If, indeed, the report is "full, it should run to more than a dozen volumes.

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I think that the use of Care Homes should be a major part of the investigation.

  1. Quite large groups of older people mixing, in there, together.

  2. Does the cost of being in there include enough trained staff who could cope with any size of virus.

  3. If infection hit, did they ship all those who caught it, off to hospital & refuse to take them back?
    (thus hospital bed blocking would become even more rampant)

  4. Would some of the sobbing relatives have been better advised to look after their kin in their own homes?

I wouldn’t put any of mine anywhere near a care home!

Especially as I would be charged many thousands to put them there.

It was BJ’s government policy which was responsible for the care homes outbreak and the onward transmission with a disproportionate number of deaths - the policy has actually been deemed unlawful.

Key failings included decisions to discharge thousands of untested hospital patients into care homes and imposition of blanket DNARs

Most shockingly, on 17 March, four days after the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, the Government ordered the discharge of 25,000 patients from hospitals into care homes, including those infected or possibly infected with COVID-19.

On 2 April, the same day that the WHO confirmed the existence of pre-symptomatic cases of COVID-19, the Government reiterated its guidance for hospital discharge that ‘Negative tests are not required prior to transfers / admissions into the care home’.

Several care home managers told Amnesty that they had no COVID-19 in their homes until after they received patients discharged from hospital.

Care home managers and staff say they were left without guidance, PPE or access to testing

Thursday 28 April 2022 04:52, UK

In a ruling on Wednesday, Lord Justice Bean and Mr Justice Garnham concluded that policies contained in documents released in March and early April 2020 were unlawful because they failed to take into account the risk to elderly and vulnerable residents from non-symptomatic transmission of the virus.

They said that, despite there being “growing awareness” of the risk of asymptomatic transmission during March 2020, there was no evidence that Matt Hancock, who was health secretary at the time, addressed the issue of the risk to care home residents of such transmission.

Not sure that I see the use of an enquiry. The government, especially The Fat Oaf, screwed up BIG TIME. Some excuse for wrong decisions based on a unique situation with no precedence, reliance on best available science but what alternative was there, but shocking failure to protect the most vulnerable. And what outcome could there be from the most damning report - this government from Bunter up will shrug it off and do nothing but mutter about lessons to be learned at most. Anyone with an IQ score higher than their tooth count already knows just what a disaster we presently have in Nr.10.

Hi

A personal view.

She is dead straight and as hard as nails.

She does not muck around.

Being on the receiving end of a questioning from her is not the most pleasant experience in the World.

Our government overacted, better than underreacting.

We panicked, it wasn’t immediately clear that old people were at such High Risk.

The Inquiry will examine, consider and report on preparations and the response to the
pandemic in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, up to and including the
Inquiry’s formal setting-up date, 28 June 2022.

The ToR document is 3 pages long.

@d00d , The world over reacted dOOdy !!
And still is !!
Donkeyman! :frowning::frowning:

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All well and good but what will it achieve now?

@The_Artful_Todger , Yeah, just look at the Grenfell inquiry !?!?
Donkeyman! :-1::frowning::frowning::-1:

Baroness Hallett, chairing the public inquiry, has said that she would conduct the inquiry as quickly as possible, without giving a timeframe for its completion.

“Every person has had their life changed to some extent,” Lady Hallett said. “Those who have suffered the most will want to know if any more could have been done to reduce their suffering.”

The inquiry:

  • can compel witnesses to give evidence and release documents
  • cannot prosecute or fine anyone

Public hearings will begin in the spring.

Before then, Lady Hallettt said, the key topics for the inquiry would include:

  • how well prepared the UK had been
  • the response when the pandemic it hit
  • the decision to introduce a lockdown and other restrictions on the public - and the scientific expertise informing it

The inquiry will begin taking evidence from experts in September.

Several reports have already put the UK government’s handling of the pandemic under the spotlight

Last October, a report by MPs on the Health and Social Care Committee and the Science and Technology Committee said the UK’s failure to do more to stop Covid spreading early in the pandemic was one of the country’s worst public-health failures.

And a report by spending watchdog the National Audit Office last November found ministers had not been properly prepared for a pandemic such as Covid, and lacked detailed plans on shielding, job-support schemes and school disruption.

The Scottish government has launched its own Covid inquiry, led by judge Lady Poole.

What a waste of time and money. An enquiry is not necessary. The government handled the covid crisis perfectly. A few relatives of some people who sadly died spoke on TV of their upset (which is to be expected) and were looking for someone to blame. I suppose this will help them grief if they get an apology. Sorry, but I do not know who from. The government and NHS were all exemplary.

Hi

Much as I dislike Boris the damage was done long before he became PM.

Labs had been cut, PPE disposed of or ruined in storage.

He had naff all to work with.

The Inquiry will decide who is to blame for what.

That will be. years away.

What I do not want to happen is people making political points, we will learn nothing from that and learning how to handle the next one better is what we need

The latest area of the inquiry’s investigations, known as Module 2, will focus on decisions and announcements made by the UK government at Westminster between early January and late March 2020.

During this stage, official documents will be sought and evidence on government decision-making will be examined.

Later, the inquiry will also look at how decisions were made up until early 2022, and the handling of the pandemic in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Sir Chris Whitty, the UK government’s chief medical adviser during the pandemic, and Sir Patrick Vallance, chief scientific adviser, are also likely to appear before the inquiry. Mr Johnson’s former aide Dominic Cummings is also expected to appear.

Module 1, launched in July, is examining the resilience and preparedness of the UK for a pandemic before 2020.

Formal hearings with witnesses are set to start next spring, and the inquiry is inviting individuals or organisations with a specific interest, known as core participants, to register.

This will allow them to get access to relevant evidence and make statements at hearings.

Slowly but surely … :snail:

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“It is understood that legal bills for the inquiry team itself will be about £8m.”

Marvellous.

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There have been reports that the cost of the inquiry has already topped £80m because of contracts signed with law firms and other advisers.

But this, reportedly, includes all government departments involved in the pandemic response.

They’re all hurriedly acquiring high-powered defence attorneys … :wink:

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Counsel for the inquiry, Hugo Keith KC, said the messages had been requested alongside thousands of other documents. He said a major focus of this part of the inquiry was understanding how the “momentous” decisions to impose lockdowns and restrictions were taken. The revelations came as he set out the details of how this module will work.

The inquiry is being broken down into different sections - or modules as they are being called.
The preliminary hearing for module one, looking at how well prepared the UK was, took place last month. Monday marked the start of the preliminary hearing for module two, which is looking at the political decision-making.

In his opening address, Mr Keith said the crisis placed “extraordinary levels of strain” on the UK’s health, care, financial and educational systems and businesses, on top of individual bereavements.

He said “The pandemic has led to financial and economic turmoil. It has disrupted economies and education systems, and put unprecedented pressure on national health systems. Jobs and businesses have been destroyed and livelihoods taken away. The disease has caused widespread and long-term physical and mental illness, grief and untold misery. Its impact will be felt worldwide, including in the United Kingdom, for decades to come.”

The identity of the core participants for this module were also unveiled. These are the individuals and organisations which will have enhanced rights to see documents and make submissions. Alongside government departments, they will also include a host of groups representing some of the most vulnerable in society, including people with disabilities, children, women at risk of domestic violence and those who developed “long Covid”.

Mr Keith said the pandemic “reached out and affected almost every person” but its impact was not equally felt. He said it was important to assess whether the risks these groups faced was properly taken into account.

Government by WhatsApp … who’d have thought … :roll_eyes: