I don't think you read the same report that I did, David Far from concentrating on expert advice it covers the whole unpreparedness of government and its structure to meet the challenges of the pandemic. From a confused multiplicity of bodies set up to supposedly cover such emergencies to the failure to look beyond a flu pandemic and failure to look closely at international experiences with other illnesses and the inaction of the government machinery on the results of numerous 'exercises...
PPE was covered briefly in Ch. 5
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Personal protective equipment
5.85. The importance of PPE was an issue that arose repeatedly in the exercises, including the 2016 exercises Silver Swan (pandemic influenza in Scotland) and Iris (a MERS-CoV outbreak in Scotland), and in the lead-up to Cygnus.132
5.86. It was clear that PPE needed to be stockpiled in advance of a pandemic, in sufficient quantities, fit-tested and connected to an effective distribution network.
Sir Christopher Wormald told the Inquiry that “[w]e never nationally ran out of PPE”, but that “in individual places there were shortages of PPE and people having to use
not the right PPE”.
133 Mr Hancock said that there were logistical difficulties in getting access to stockpiles quickly.
*134 The Inquiry will be examining this and PPE more fully
in subsequent modules.*
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But I was trying to pint out that there had been more than one major exercise over the years.
Chapter 5 p111 has a diagram setting out the numerous exercises and reports which had taken place since 2000, either nationwide or in the devolved authorities
Among the problems with these exercises this was noted:
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5.56. ...., there was a lack of openness about the outcome of the exercises. The Local Government Association was not sighted on the conclusions of Exercise Cygnus.
Although the Exercise Cygnus report included all local resilience forums on its distribution list and it was to be published on ResilienceDirect, *the Local Government
Association only obtained disclosure of the report as a result of legal proceedings* brought by another body in 2020.89 It was not aware of Exercise Alice until the autumn of 2022, when its existence became known through the work of this Inquiry.
90 There was no local government involvement in Exercise Alice, nor were its report or recommendations shared.
91 Mr Lloyd told the Inquiry that, had the Local
Government Association known about issues such as the potential importance of quarantining in planning, it “would have changed what we were doing in our local planning”
.92 Many others with an acute interest in the outcome of Exercise Cygnus, including the Royal College of Nursing and private care home providers, were unable to learn from it or contribute to the discussion about how the systems of
preparedness could be improved.
93 Reports should have been shared between
governments and key organisations, as well as with the public.
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Lack of continuity in planning
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5.50. However, following the February 2017 meeting of the Threats, Hazards, Resilience and Contingencies sub-Committee referred to above, it did not meet again.
Similarly,the Pandemic Flu Readiness Board did not meet for a year between November 2018 and November 2019. Following the year-long hiatus, it was recognised that there was a need to “re-invigorate the Board” and to “prioritize and re-energize work streams and the [Board]”.
85 *The UK government’s priority did not ever move back to
pandemic preparedness*. The Pandemic Flu Readiness Board did not meet again until 23 January 2020.
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All in all, it speaks to a disturbing lack of real interest in successive governments in preparing thoroughly for any sort of pandemic.
It even says that impending Brexit meant that civil servants who were supposed to be working on pandemic preparedness were reallocated to work on Brexit planning...
“We are killing like we haven’t killed since 1967”
How ironic - some HMRC staff essentially committing fraud.
