The UK recorded one of the world’s highest total number of deaths from COVID, with more than 175,000 reported by the time Boris Johnson stood down as prime minister in July last year.
The inquiry doesn’t have the power to bring criminal or civil charges against individuals or bodies, and cannot force the government to take on its recommendations.
It has been set up “to examine the UK’s response to and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and learn lessons for the future”.
It will hold public hearings, which are expected to last until 2026.
People have also been encouraged to share their experiences through the Every Story Matters section on the inquiry website.
No date has been given for when it will end, and the cost is likely to run into tens if not hundreds of millions of pounds.
The number of issues raised will, similarly, run into hundreds if not thousands.
This expenditure only makes sense if people are properly held to account and the huge waste of public spending leads to criminal convictions & recovery of wrongly spent money. The first big waste was the careless (cough, by which I mean corrupt) spending on dodgy PPE contracts. The second big waste was money dished out to businesses and individuals with no tracking, no plan for recovery and completely open to abuse. I’d be happy to see a pandemic enquiry that cost hundreds of millions if it resulted in many billions being paid back.
I’d say there’s no chance of retrieving the billions wasted on PPE that disppeared into private pockets - the only hope is that some of the appalling Tory mismanagement of the covid health crisis is formally exposed and the perpetrators identified.
The purpose of them here in the UK is not to establish the facts it is purely avoidance and delay so that anyone responsible is long gone and no purp
ose would be served by trying to institute proceedings.
Lessons will of course be learnt, they will be valuable lessons and those now in charge will be working towards improving things.
The Government will announce how much money they are going to invest to improve the system.
I apologise for being so brutal, but that is life, they all do it.
It is the 6th anniversary of the Grenfell Fire tomorrow.
The final report has still not been published.
The cause of the rapid spread of the fire and other really crucial mistakes were known 6 weeks after the fire.
The Government announced it would be making all other high rises with similar similar problems would be made safe as soon as possible and would be providing the money for this.
This has still not been done.
The causes of our unpreparedness for a Pandemic started long before the current bunch of idiots took charge.
We had a very effective system in place for decades, it worked and cost very little in the scheme of things.
It was dismantled to save money because we had not had a huge outbreak for a very long time.
It was prevention rather than cure, much cheaper but the bean counters destroyed it.
I agree with your question. What is need here is an ‘insert’ that could be added to any reply. That would give respondees a box in which to add a reaction to the post without opening a reply box.
The UK entered the coronavirus pandemic with public services “depleted” and health inequalities on the rise, the Covid inquiry has heard.
A decade of austerity leading up to 2020 meant the health of the nation was already in decline, two experts said.
A report from Prof Sir Michael Marmot and Prof Clare Bambra was filed as part of the public hearings exploring the UK’s preparedness for a pandemic.
The inquiry also heard about increasing pressures in the NHS, with the number of people waiting for treatment twice as high before the pandemic as it was in 2009.
The number of vacancies for doctors and nurses were already climbing, with “great pressure” on existing staff.
Life expectancy around the UK was already on the decline. Up to 2010, it had been steadily increasing but, from that point on, the improvements stalled - with the largest declines generally seen among the most deprived socioeconomic groups.
10 years of Tory government will do that to a nation …
Former Health Secretary Matt Hancock is appearing before the Covid Inquiry, which is currently looking at how prepared the UK was for the pandemic
Hancock says that instead of how to suppress a virus, the UK’s plans focused on the “consequences of a disaster… Can we buy enough body bags, where we are going to bury the dead?”
Hugo Keith KC was asking Matt Hancock to focus on a strategy document rather than discussions about lockdown but Hancock wanted to make a point that was “vital for planning” and was interrupting him.
Keith said “Mr Hancock, will you allow me please? In this forum – I ask the questions.”
“Of course,” Matt Hancock replied as he reached for his water glass and took a sip.
I watched Cameron being interviewed by the Covid Inquiry (I think that was last week)
During questioning, he had to admit that there was a series of failures in respect of pandemic planning and preparedness during his time in Government.
Sadly, the mechanisms are all set up for disaster planning but ministers often have more important things to hand:
On the day of the first Cobra meeting he later attended a Chinese New Year event in Downing Street.
For the next three on January 29, February 5 and February 26 he was thought to be preparing for Prime Minister’s Questions as the meetings took place.
But on two of these dates he found time for a “People’s PMQs ” at which he spoke about Shakespeare.
The last of the five Cobra meetings he missed was thought to have taken place while he was in country retreat Chevening with fiancee Carrie Symonds and did not make a public appearance for 12 days.
There have been claims he may have spent some of his time preparing his adult children with his ex Marina Wheeler for the news he and Ms Symonds were having a baby and planning to marry.
Instead the five Cobra meetings were led by Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who said after the first, on January 24, that the scientific advice was the risk to the British public was “low”.
Matt Hancock is heckled as he leaves the Covid Inquiry building in central London, with people shouting “killer” and “how many have died?” at him.
Meanwhile, the groups who represent those who’ve lost loved ones during the pandemic turn their backs on him in unison as he quickly runs down the steps of Dorland House and jumps into the waiting car.
Good for them …
And that’s it, after three hours (with a 15-minute break) former Health Secretary Matt Hancock has finished giving evidence.
This will not be the only time he will give evidence to the inquiry - today he was only being asked about how prepared the UK was for the pandemic, which is what the inquiry is currently considering.
His evidence covered a wide range of areas from adult social care to PPE, but his main argument was that UK pandemic preparations were too focused on “the consequences of a disaster” rather than how to stop it.
Hancock is likely to be called back for the inquiry’s second module - decision making and political governance - in the autumn.
At least Hancock can share the blame of lack of preparedness with previous government ministers - but when it comes to the “decision making and political governance” part of the enquiry, he will have fewer people to hide behind - in all Hancock’s appearances at the podium and in interviews during the Covid-19 pandemic, he always reminded me of a rabbit in the headlights, not really having a clue what he was doing and just trying to muddle through with sound bites.
I happened to turn on the TV to watch the news today and it was all about the Hancock enquiry mainly about how prepared the government was for a major incident such as the covid virus.
To say I watched in amazement is an understatement. He was asked at a government enquiry about preperations for pandemic like covid Talk about buck passing, he must have a first class honours degree in it. He talked about one comittee set up to be over looked by another higher up comittee to be passed to another department to oversee the previous 2 comittees. then recommendations passed back again to the original committeee to amend where necessary. At least that is what I think he was trying to convey. When it came down to what action was taken in preperation he went into governmental jargen full time even to the extent those on the enquiry comittee were lost. Needless to say nothing was found out or at least understood by the likes of you and me.
The thing that annoyed me most was all those people that were there are earning hundred of thousands of our hard earned pounds and not gettingo what the committee was set up for in the first place.
I thought one thing was confirmed. The UK preparedness for the possibility of a pandemic in the future was significantly slowed (halted even?) due to civil servants being transferred from that work onto something that was seen as urgently important around 2017/18/19. It might have been important, however it was self-inflicted, and surely there is an argument that to less worthy of investment than preparing for a pandemic.
