Coronavirus: Health leaders back public inquiry into handling of pandemic

‘There should certainly be a public inquiry into the handling of the Covid-19 outbreak,’ says president of the Royal College of Physicians

There are growing calls for a public inquiry into the coronavirus outbreak (Getty)

Senior doctors and health leaders have backed the idea of a future public inquiry into the government’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak and the NHS response.

Royal colleges that represent more than 50,000 doctors in England, the NHS Confederation, which speaks for 500 healthcare organisations, and NHS Providers, which represents over 200 hospital trusts, told The Independent that a full public inquiry would be needed when the immediate crisis facing the UK has passed.

There has been widespread speculation that an inquiry will be held. The chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Michael Gove, said this week: “We are still living through this pandemic and there will be lessons to be learned.”

An inquiry, set up under the Public Inquiries Act 2005, would be able to compel witnesses to testify on oath as well as demand evidence that could be discussed and shared during public hearings.

Only the government has the power to order a public inquiry into issues where there is a clear public concern. However, ministers have discretion over when, and if, they will hold an inquiry at all.

Sophie Kemp, partner at Kingsley Napley law firm, said the government could find that it is required to hold an inquiry under the European Convention of Human Rights, which requires governments to establish public investigations where systemic causes may have contributed to a person’s death.

She highlighted decisions by the government that could come under scrutiny from an inquiry, including the decision on 12 March to end community testing and contact tracing, the “herd immunity” strategy, and the timing of the lockdown and whether it should have been implemented earlier than 23 March.

She said: “The decision to order a Covid-19 inquiry will require significant political bravery. Some of the most difficult decisions a government has ever had to make will fall under the spotlight, and, as the crisis continues to unfold, yet more decisions will come into focus."

Niall Dickson, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, described an inquiry as “inevitable and the right thing to do” but warned that it must not be a “blame game but a way to learn lessons”.

He said efforts were rightly focused on tackling the challenges facing health services today, and added: “It is right that those responsible are held to account, but we should acknowledge that everyone has been learning on the job, everyone will have made mistakes, and doubtless nearly everything could have been done better – as a nation we love to blame, but it is surely better to learn.”

NHS hospitals were asked to free up 33,000 beds in a matter of weeks ahead of a predicted surge of thousands of patients needing help to breathe. At the height of the crisis, hospitals faced running out of protective clothing for staff and an inability to test staff reporting Covid-19 symptoms.

Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, told The Independent: “There are clearly issues of real importance and questions to answer, and it would seem pretty logical that a public inquiry is a very good way of answering those questions."

Among the questions to be answered, he said, were whether the UK pandemic stockpile was adequate and properly configured for a respiratory pandemic, whether PPE distribution problems were solved quickly enough, whether the right decisions were made around testing – particularly whether testing activity was skewed by chasing “an arbitrary, single day, capacity target” – and whether there was an adequate focus on social care.

“We would expect and look for those questions to be initially answered quickly rather than have to wait years for an inquiry to do a full report," he said, adding that NHS trusts were focused on the problems they faced today and that any inquiry would need to be held at a time when NHS leaders could properly contribute.

One of the areas hardest hit by the virus has been NHS critical care, which has been overwhelmed by the number of patients, with the NHS having to create hundreds of makeshift intensive-care units.

Professor Ravi Mahajan, president of the Royal College of Anaesthetists, which speaks for 27,000 doctors including those working in intensive care, said learning from the past two months would help to prepare the UK for an inevitable future crisis.

“With the UK currently having the highest death toll in Europe, it is critical that lessons are learned from how we all prepared for and responded to this pandemic.

“Analysis of when and how decisions were made and the effectiveness of those decisions will provide the government and senior healthcare leaders with the knowledge of how to be better prepared when another such health crisis emerges. Because there’s no doubt that one will emerge. How we learn from this episode will be important in ensuring we are all able to respond in a more effective manner next time,” he said.

He said an emphasis on learning, not blame, should be a “foundational principle” of a future inquiry that should come only once the crisis facing the NHS has lessened.

At the worst of the outbreak, the NHS saw about 19,000 patients a day admitted to hospital with the coronavirus, with most routine surgeries and appointments cancelled, whole areas of hospitals reconfigured, and doctors and nurses being redeployed.

Professor Andrew Goddard, president of the Royal College of Physicians, said: “There should certainly be a public inquiry into the handling of the Covid-19 outbreak.” However, he added that it should not take place while the crisis is ongoing, and warned there is still a long way to go for the NHS and social care to recover.

“Getting these services back up and running should be our immediate priority such that we can withstand further waves of infection safely," he said.

“The government should also be continually learning lessons to inform the next stages of the pandemic, particularly from countries whose strategies have led to a successful reduction in the reproductive rate of the virus.”