UK ‘prepared for the wrong pandemic’, COVID inquiry told as it opened for first time
The UK prepared for the wrong pandemic, the official COVID-19 inquiry was told as it opened its doors for the first time.
Hugo Keith KC, the lead counsel to the inquiry, said the nation was “taken by surprise” by “significant aspects” of the disease, which has killed more than 226,000 people in the UK.
He told the inquiry the government was more concerned about an influenza pandemic, rather than one originating from a coronavirus, so it devoted more time and resources to it.
“The evidence may show simply, and terribly, that not enough people thought to ask because everybody started to assume it would be flu,” he said.
While the UK may have been prepared for an outbreak of the flu, “it had not adequately foreseen and prepared for the need for mass testing in the event of a non-influenza pandemic”.
Addressing the chair of the inquiry, Baroness Hallett, Mr Keith said: “You will hear evidence that for many years an influenza pandemic was assessed as being one of the most likely risks to the United Kingdom.
“But what about other risks? That whilst they might be less likely could be just as if not more deadly?”
Pete Weatherby KC, speaking on behalf of COVID Bereaved Families for Justice said the closest the UK had to a plan was the Department of Health’s 2011 Pandemic Flu plan.
Kirsten Heaven, speaking on behalf of Welsh bereaved families, said the Welsh government also failed to plan for any other virus that had “pandemic potential”.
“This was a catastrophic and unjustifiable failure,” she said.
Claire Mitchell KC, speaking on behalf of COVID Bereaved Families for Justice Scotland added: “Despite a belief that the UK was a world leader in preparedness, it quickly and terrifyingly became clear we were not.”
The UK, she said, “prepared for the wrong pandemic”.
Meanwhile, Ronan Lavery, speaking on behalf of families from Northern Ireland, said the region was at least 18 months behind the rest of the UK in ensuring resilience to any pandemic flu outbreak.
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COVID inquiry begins with remarks from chair
Government ‘crowded out’ pandemic preparedness
The inquiry is split into several modules, with interim reports being produced at the end of each one.
This module looks at how prepared the UK was for the COVID pandemic.
Hugo Keith KC told the official inquiry that work around a possible no-deal exit from the European Union may have drained “the resources and capacity” that were needed for pandemic planning.
The Operation Yellowhammer document, which was published by the government in 2019, set out a series of “reasonable worst-case assumptions” about what would happen if the UK did not reach a deal with the EU.
It suggested there would be real risks of a rise in public disorder, higher food prices and reduced medical supplies.
But Neasa Murnaghan, speaking on behalf of the Department of Health Northern Ireland, said no-deal preparations may have actually been advantageous for her country’s planning.
“Whilst these preparations did divert some of our focus away from pandemic preparedness planning, as was no doubt the case for all four nations of the United Kingdom, on the positive side the many aspects of additional training, improvements in the resilience of supply chains and the preparedness to manage the potential consequences were, when considered overall, advantageous,” Ms Murnaghan said.
But she did admit managing the pandemic was “particularly difficult for a newly formed executive after three years with no government”. The Stormont assembly was suspended from January 2017 until 11 January 2020, after power-sharing collapsed.
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‘My son died alone without dignity’
Families’ ‘dignified vigil’
The retired Court of Appeal judge began the first day of evidence of the official inquiry by welcoming the “dignified vigil” held by bereaved relatives outside the hearing.
Members of the COVID-19 Bereaved Families for Justice campaign group lined up outside holding pictures of loved ones as they expressed frustration at feeling “excluded from sharing key evidence”.
Among them was Kim and her daughter Louise. They were emotional as they held a photo of their father and husband, Paul. In it, the smiling ambulance worker is warning his colleague to keep their distance from his baguette.
“He loved to make people laugh,” said Louise. “If someone didn’t find him funny, he would make it his mission to make them smile.”
“I think that’s what I miss the most,” said Kim.
“Every day he would make me laugh.
Kim and Louise Nutt with a photo of Paul
“It has been three years but it is still such a wrench. We had so many plans.”
They were standing outside the inquiry, they said, because they wanted Paul’s story to be told.
“I wish it wouldn’t shut us out,” said Kim.
“I felt locked out when Paul was in hospital and I feel locked out now.”
MP Mike Amesbury has pleaded guilty to assault by beating for punching a man in Cheshire.
The Runcorn and Helsby MP appeared at Chester Magistrates’ Court on Thursday morning where he admitted attacking 45-year-old Paul Fellows in Main Street, Frodsham, Cheshire, in October.
Speaking outside the court, he said the incident was “highly regrettable” and he was “sincerely sorry” to Mr Fellows and his family.
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CCTV footage showed Amesbury, who has been an MP since 2017, punching Mr Fellows on the ground.
Other previously released videos from another angle show Amesbury punching Mr Fellows repeatedly after knocking him to the floor as members of the public intervened.
It was reported to police at 2.48pm on Saturday 26 October.
The court heard how Amesbury told Mr Fellows “you won’t threaten your MP again” after punching him in the head with enough force to knock him to the ground.
The 55-year-old politician is currently an independent MP after he was suspended by Labour at the end of October when the CCTV footage emerged.
He will continue to be suspended so remains as an independent.
Pic: Richard Townshend/UK Parliament/PA
The court heard Mr Fellows recognised Amesbury in the taxi rank in Frodsham town centre at about 2am on 26 October last year.
Both were alone and had been drinking.
Alison Storey, prosecuting, said Mr Fellows approached the MP to remonstrate about a bridge closure in the town and CCTV then shows they spoke for several minutes but there was no aggression or raised voices.
Mr Fellows then started to walk away but Amesbury re-engaged and was heard saying “what” a few times before shouting it.
The victim then put his hands in his pockets and turned towards the taxi queue and when he turned back Amesbury punched him in the head, knocking him to the ground.
He then punched Mr Fellows again, at least five times, Ms Storey said.
She told the court he was then heard saying “you won’t threaten your MP again will you”.
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Amesbury was voluntarily interviewed under caution by Cheshire Police in October and was charged with common assault on 7 November.
At the time, Amesbury said what happened was “deeply regrettable” and he was co-operating with police.
A Labour Party spokesman said: “It is right that Mike Amesbury has taken responsibility for his unacceptable actions.
“He was rightly suspended by the Labour Party following the announcement of the police investigation.
“We cannot comment further whilst legal proceedings are still ongoing.”
Amesbury is set to be sentenced next month. If he is sent to prison or given a suspended sentence he could lose his seat.
A sentence of less than a year, even if it is suspended, would leave him liable to the recall process, which would trigger a by-election if 10% of registered voters in his seat sign a petition calling for it.
A jail term of more than a year would mean he automatically loses his seat.
UK
‘I have nightmares of dead bodies’: Patients dying and undiscovered for hours in hospital corridors
Patients are dying in corridors and going undiscovered for hours while the sick are left to soil themselves, nurses have said, revealing the scale of the corridor crisis inside the UK’s hospitals.
In a “harrowing” report built from the experiences of more than 5,000 NHS nursing staff, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) found almost seven in 10 (66.81%) say they are delivering care in overcrowded or unsuitable places, including converted cupboards, corridors and even car parks, on a daily basis.
Demoralised staff are looking after as many as 40 patients in a single corridor, unable to access oxygen, cardiac monitors, suction and other lifesaving equipment.
Women are miscarrying in corridors, while some nurses report being unable to carry out adequate CPR on patients having heart attacks.
Sara (not her real name) said she was on shift when a doctor told her there was a dying patient who had been waiting in the hospital’s corridor for six hours.
“It took a further two hours to get her into an adequate care space to make her clean and comfortable,” she told Sky News.
“That’s a human being, someone in the last hours of their life in the middle of a corridor with a detoxing patient vomiting and being abusive behind them and a very poorly patient in front of them, who was confused, screaming in pain. It was awful on the family, and it was awful on the patient.”
Dead patients ‘not found for hours’
A nurse working in the southeast of England quit her job after witnessing an elderly lady in “animal-like conditions”.
She told the RCN: “A 90-year-old lady with dementia was scared, crying and urinating in the bed after asking several times for help to the toilet. Seeing that lady, frightened and subjected to animal-like conditions is what broke me.
“At the end of that shift, I handed in my notice with no job to go to. I will not work where this is a normal day-to-day occurrence.”
Another nurse in the South East said a patient died in a corridor and “wasn’t discovered for hours”.
Sara told Sky another woman needed resuscitating after the oxygen underneath her trolley ran out. Sara was one of just two nurses caring for more than 30 patients on that corridor.
“I have had nightmares – I have a nightmare that I walk out in the corridor and there are dead bodies in body bags on the trolleys,” she said, growing visibly emotional.
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No electricity to plug in computers
One nurse, who spoke to Sky News, said the conditions were “undignified” and “inhumane”.
“It’s not just corridors – we utilise chairs, cupboards, whatever space is available in the hospital to be repurposed into a care space, in the loosest sense of that term. These spaces are unsafe.”
Some spaces, she said, don’t even have basic electricity for nurses to plug in their computers.
The nurse, who spoke to Sky on the condition of anonymity, said she has experienced burnout multiple times over the state of her workplace.
“I have come to the conclusion this week I don’t think I can continue working in the NHS or as a nurse,” she said.
“It breaks my soul; I love what I do when I am able to do it in the right way. I like caring for people, I like making people better, I also like providing a dignified death.”
She added: “I want to look after the institution I was born into, but for the sake of my family and my mental health, I don’t know how much more I can give.”
With 32,000 nursing vacancies in England alone, data also shows around one in eight nurses leave the profession within five years of qualifying.
Nurses are being forced to provide care in hospital corridors and car parks. Pic: PA
Staff ‘not proud of the care they are giving’
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) says the testimony, which runs to over 400 pages, must mark a “moment in time”. In May 2024, the RCN declared a “national emergency” over corridor care in NHS services.
Professor Nicola Ranger, RCN general secretary and chief executive, said: “At the moment, [nursing staff] are not proud of the care they are giving.”
“We hear stories of escalation areas and temporary beds that have been open for two years,” she added. “That is no longer escalation, it’s understaffed and underfunded capacity that is pretty shocking care for patients. We have to get a grip on that.”
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She called the situation “a disgrace”, citing abuse of staff as another reason for people leaving the profession in droves.
Last week, a nurse was left with “life-changing injuries” after being stabbed by a man while at work.
“The NHS used to be the envy of the world and we need to take a long hard look at ourselves and say ‘what needs to change?’
“The biggest concern for us is that the public Is starting to lose a little faith in their care, and that has to stop. We absolutely have to sort this out.”
Commenting on the RCN’s report, Duncan Burton, chief nursing officer for England, said the NHS had experienced one of the “toughest winters” in recent months, and the report “should never be considered the standard to which the NHS aspires”.
“Despite the challenges the NHS faces, we are seeing extraordinary efforts from staff who are doing everything they can to provide safe, compassionate care every day,” he added. “As a nurse, I know how distressing it can be when you are unable to provide the very best standards of care for patients.”
Have you experienced corridor care in an NHS hospital? Get in touch on NHSstories@sky.uk
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