Misconduct in public office. Why did so many thousands die unnecessarily? Report of the People’s Covid Inquiry (1 December 2021)

Summary

The People’s Covid Inquiry, chaired by the human rights lawyer Michael Mansfield QC, began in January 2021 to learn lessons quickly after the government rejected calls for a public inquiry. The Government was informed of the inquiry on 23 February 2021 and invited to take part. No response was received. The first session of the People’s Covid Inquiry began on 24 February and convened in live sessions fortnightly until 16 June 2021.

The Inquiry took evidence over nine sessions from over 40 witnesses including international and UK experts, frontline workers, bereaved families, trade union leaders, and representatives of disabled people’s and pensioners’ organisations. 

Content

The UK government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic was “grossly negligent” and amounted to misconduct in public office, an inquiry set up by the campaign group Keep our NHS Public has concluded.

In a foreword to the inquiry’s report Mansfield said, “From lack of preparation and coherent policy, unconscionable delay through to preferred and wasteful procurement, to ministers themselves breaking the rules, the misconduct is earth-shattering. The public deserves the truth, recognition and admissions.”

The report highlights the government’s failure to prepare for a pandemic despite earlier modelling exercises that should have ensured it was ready; a failure to lock down early enough; and the decision to send elderly people back from hospital to their care homes without testing for the virus. An estimated 25% of covid deaths were among care home residents.

“Unforgivably,” the report said, there was a failure to provide adequate personal protective equipment to staff, with the result that frontline workers had a sevenfold higher risk of getting covid. The “corrupt” contracting system set up by the government resulted in contracts for PPE being awarded without tender to people who had no experience in providing it.

The inquiry points to the huge waste of public money spent on an ineffective system for testing and tracing people thought to have been exposed to the virus.