John’s Campaign and Care Rights UK call for concrete actions after Covid Inquiry’s powerful indictment of political decision-making
UK Covid Inquiry Core Participants John’s Campaign and Care Rights UK have responded to the Inquiry's report into core UK decision-making and political governance during the pandemic.
John’s Campaign and Care Rights UK agree with many of the report’s key findings and recommendations, and endorse Baroness Hallett’s finding that the failures of policy-making can be measured in lives lost and long-term impact.
However, they also highlight the need for definitive action now and a clearer focus on the people affected by the decisions, as well as the lack of specific focus on decisions made in each devolved nation.
Throughout their participation in the hearing for Module 2B focusing on the impact of decision-making in Wales, the Core Participants highlighted the disconnect between what was being promised at policy level and what was being delivered on the ground. They say that listening often did not translate into action and led to harm, and that the Inquiry’s recommendations should have reflected this more clearly.
In their submissions to the Inquiry, the groups emphasised the need to take an individualised and human rights-based approach to decision-making. They say the Inquiry’s report demonstrates that this was lacking in the pandemic response, and that concrete steps need to be taken to consider the impact of decisions on people before, not after, they are made.
The Core Participants agree with the Inquiry’s key findings that the UK government and devolved nations were not prepared for the pandemic, and their actions were “too little, too late”. They also agree with the report’s stark finding that the repetition of mistakes made early on in the pandemic later on was ‘inexcusable’.
The Core Participants had raised concerns about the quality and honesty of communications with the public and welcome the Inquiry’s recommendation that advice and minutes of advisory group meetings should in future be routinely published. They endorse the report’s conclusion that ‘the public can and must be trusted with both knowledge and uncertainty’ and stress that the core principle of public life that decisions should be taken in an open and transparent manner must not be forgotten in times of emergency.
The groups say that the report also rightly emphasises the importance of data in informing decision-making and recall that the hearings in Wales laid bare the lack of knowledge and data in far too many areas, including social care. The Core Participants agree that governments must understand what data they are likely to need during a pandemic and identify how this will be collected. The groups fully endorse and emphasise the need identified by the Inquiry to consider how front-line experiences should not only sit alongside quantitative data but be a valuable source of knowledge to inform decision-making.
The Core Participants also echo the observations that there was no systematic process in place to ensure that the expert advice considered included sufficient breadth of expertise, including from experts in social care and people with conditions such as dementia who were disproportionately affected by both the disease and the measures to contain it.
They consider it regrettable that, as the report puts it, despite harm being foreseeable ‘the impact on vulnerable groups had not been adequately considered in pandemic planning, and the existing mechanisms for assessing the impact of decisions were largely applied retrospectively’. The groups agree that ‘decision-makers consequently had little understanding of the impacts of restrictions on vulnerable groups’. The Inquiry’s report rightly notes that ‘the experience of those in care homes illustrates the importance in any future pandemic strategy of providing for the identification and development of a plan to protect those who are likely to be vulnerable to the virus but also disproportionately impacted by restrictions to control the virus’.
The groups welcome the Inquiry’s recommendations, which include that governments must:
Improve the routine consideration of the impact that decisions might have on those most at risk in emergency
Reform and clarify the structures for decision-making during emergencies within each nation
Ensure that decisions and their implications are clearly communicated to the public and that there is a central repository for restrictions and guidance
Enable greater parliamentary scrutiny of the use of emergency powers through safeguards such as ‘sunset clauses’ and regular reporting on the use of powers.
However, translating them into action will require a focus on specific steps which some of the report’s recommendations lack. The groups consider it a missed opportunity that the report doesn’t identify more specific and doable action for governments now. This should include a requirement to engage with stakeholders on decisions affecting them.
As Core Participants in Module 2b which focused on Wales, the Core Participants were disappointed to note that the Welsh Government’s approach wasn’t analysed in more detail despite Wales having the highest age-standardised mortality of the four nations from August to December 2020. It was clear from the hearings in Cardiff that the Welsh Government was too often unaware of or failed to act on the reality on the ground and that the organisational structures in place lacked clarity. For example, the role of Public Health Wales should have been more clearly defined and this should have been reflected in a concrete recommendation.
The Core Participants do welcome the specific recommendation identified in the report that the UK government and devolved administrations should each agree a framework in advance that identifies people who would be most at risk of impact from both a future virus and the steps taken to control it. This frame should set out the specific steps that could be taken to mitigate risks. The recommendation makes clear that equality impact assessments should form part of this framework but the Core Participants say that human rights should also be at the heart of policy-making. They would have liked to see this more clearly reflected in the recommendations. They would have also liked to see more emphasis on the fact that existing legal frameworks which seek to protect human rights were ignored resulting in a key structure for decision-making having been lost.
John’s Campaign is led by Julia Jones and Nicci Gerrard, and works across the UK to support people separated from their loved ones in health and care settings.
Care Rights UK is the charity focused on promoting the rights of older people in care. Theyrun an expert adviceline providing advice on care issues for older people, and use their experience to campaign for a better care system.
The two groups are represented by Emma Jones, Carolin Ott and Tessa Gregory from Leigh Day’s human rights team.
Julia Jones from John’s Campaign said:
“From the earliest days of the pandemic, government policy making was flawed. Firstly, by a fundamental failure to trust and level with the public. Secondly, by a basic, and often startling ignorance of key facts and a failure to consult stakeholders with real life expertise and then act on what they were being told. Thirdly, by a failure to abide by essential principles of pre-existing legislation such as that enshrined in the Human Rights and Equality Acts.
“While we welcome the inquiry’s identification of these and many other key issues and the clarity of Baroness Hallett’s indictment of policy failures we are somewhat disappointed by the absence of specific, doable recommendations to remedy these in future and mitigate the avoidable harm and deep suffering still being experienced by many individuals and families today.”
Helen Wildbore, CEO of Care Rights UK said:
“Recognising the impact that poor political decision-making had on individuals is an essential moment in this public inquiry. Implementation of the Chair's recommendations will be essential for rebuilding public trust, and we hope that in future we can see greater transparency and co-production with people impacted. When legislation set out to protect people's rights fell away during the pandemic, we saw the confusion transpire in dangerous policy decisions. Human rights must be the foundation of future government decision-making in times of crisis to ensure that people are put first.”
Leigh Day solicitor Carolin Ott who represented John’s Campaign and Care Rights UK together with Leigh Day partner Emma Jones said:
“Our clients agree with many of the report’s findings which reflect some of the key failures in government decision-making that led to the most vulnerable members of society being so badly let down. However, they would have liked to see more practical recommendations, with more attention given to what each government should have done and must now do to avoid mistakes being repeated in future pandemics.”
Key findings:
The Core Participants agree with the inquiry’s key findings that:
Many of the issues identified in the report reflect the lack of preparedness discussed in the Inquiry’s Module 1 report and ‘the response to the pandemic was significantly hampered before it began’.
the response of the four governments repeatedly amounted to a case of ‘too little, too late’
the mistakes of the early pandemic were repeated later and this was ‘inexcusable’
the pandemic ‘exacerbated societal inequalties’: ‘Although the pandemic affected everyone in the UK, the impact was not shared equally. Older people, disabled people and some ethnic minority groups faced a higher risk of dying’ but also of significant impact on their lives.
‘the Covid-19 lockdowns only became inevitable because of the acts and omission of the four governments’
‘the initial response of the pandemic was marked by a lack of information and a lack of urgency’
‘the political system across the four nations lacked urgency and treated the emerging threat as predominantly a health issue’
‘the devolved administrations similarly failed to engage with the threat posed to their nations and were overly reliant on the UK government to lead the response’ and the existing structures were inadequate to facilitate necessary cooperation
‘upon entering the first lockdown, neither the UK government nor the devolved administrations had a strategy for when and how they would exit the lockdown’
‘The pandemic response also exposed wider cultural issues [particularly, within the UK government]. The very least the public should be entitled to expect is that those making the rules will abide by them…. There was a culture in government ‘in which the loudest voices prevailed and the views of other colleagues, particularly women, often went ignored, to the detriment of good decision-making’.
Communications were difficult to understand and not accessible enough and ‘in focusing on how to get messages across to the whole population, the needs of vulnerable groups were sometimes lost’.
Find out more about our evidence to the COVID Inquiry here.