ADPH responds to Public Inquiry findings
There is no question that we will see another pandemic in the future and if we want to prevent a similarly devastating – or worse – impact on our society, we must make our public health infrastructure more resilient. At the same time, we need to improve our resilience to disease."
Greg Fell, ADPH President
Public Health bosses have welcomed the Covid-19 Public Inquiry report into pandemic resilience and preparedness and urged the new Government to take heed of its findings.
The report, published by Rt Hon the Baroness Hallett DBE yesterday, comes after the Inquiry Team heard evidence from a wide range of people, including former President of the Association of Directors of Public Health (ADPH), Prof. Jim McManus.
It concludes that the UK Government and devolved administrations’ systems of emergency planning, preparedness, resilience and response failed as a result of flawed risk assessment systems, overly complex institutions, systems and structures, and a failure to learn lessons from the past. It also found that there was too little involvement in the planning process of local bodies and officials, including Directors of Public Health (DsPH).
Responding to the report, Greg Fell, current ADPH President, said:
“The UK was simply not prepared for the pandemic we had. As a result, hundreds of thousands of people died, and thousands of people continue to experience ongoing health problems. Not only did the pandemic have a huge human cost, but our health and social care services were put under overwhelming pressure, and the country’s economy suffered significant losses.
“It is clear that our systems and processes are not adequate. Not only were we hampered by their complexity, but there was a failure to take into account existing health and social inequalities which have sadly been widened by the pandemic and worsened even more by the recent cost-of-living crisis.
“The report cites the evidence given by Jim [McManus, former ADPH President] that these systems could be ‘tidied up’ and we very much hope that the new Government takes heed of the findings. Directors of Public Health are experts of their local population’s health, and there must be more consideration of local circumstances when making decisions at a national level.
“There is no question that we will see another pandemic in the future and if we want to prevent a similarly devastating – or worse – impact on our society, we must make our public health infrastructure more resilient.
“At the same time, we need to improve our resilience to disease. It is well documented that the nation’s health is declining with an increasing number of people living with, largely avoidable, health conditions. We saw during Covid-19 that those with pre-existing medical conditions were hit harder. This is likely to be the case in any future pandemic, so we need to do all that we can to create environments where healthy food, drink and leisure options are both affordable and accessible to all.
“The new Government has made a commitment to achieving this which is very welcome. However, as well as national legislation to phase out smoking and restrict advertising and sales of unhealthy products, they must commit to providing adequate, and sustainable, funding for local government and public health teams. Only by ensuring that the people and teams on the ground – those who provide support and advice and help build healthier places for us to live in – are properly trained and resourced, will we be able to implement real change.”