NHS ‘crashed to its foundations’ as pandemic hit

The NHS was ‘bursting at the seams’ as the pandemic hit – undermining care for both coronavirus patients and people needing treatment for other conditions, the public Covid inquiry has found.

On the opening day of the third phase of the investigation, which focuses on health care, advocates said the health care system entered the pandemic with too few staff and beds.

The problems meant that non-Covid care had to be cancelled en masse, while people who were seriously ill with the virus could not always receive the care they needed.

But the launch of the third module has also been criticised by campaigners, with the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK group unhappy about the way witnesses were called.

According to the campaigners, only two of the 23 witnesses they had put forward were called.

Spokesman James Telfer said the upcoming hearings would be “one of the most disturbing” parts of the inquiry, adding that it was “deeply disturbing” that more was not being done to learn from the experiences of survivors and care workers.

In total, more than 50 witnesses are expected to be called to testify during the next 10 weeks of hearings.

They will engage a wide range of NHS staff and healthcare experts in this module, covering a wide range of topics from patient diagnosis and treatment, masks, personal protective equipment (PPE), infection control in hospitals and shielding.

The investigation noted that it had also collected the stories of more than 30,000 healthcare workers, patients and family members, which have now been submitted as evidence.

In her opening remarks, Chief Counsel Jacqueline Carey KC said this module would be “broad and ambitious”.

She made it clear that the focus would not just be on how the NHS was coping, but also on the position the organisation was in when Covid struck.

Ms Carey quoted the words of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who urged the nation to “stay home, protect the NHS and save lives” when the lockdown was announced in March 2020. She said this phase would examine why the NHS needed protecting in the first place.

She said staffing levels were “clearly a concern” during the pandemic, particularly as the number of nursing vacancies was high.

“If you look back, it looks like the UK went into the pandemic with a shortage of staff. Then there’s more staff absent through illness, staff absent through shielding, staff lost through long-term COVID-19. And that’s not even mentioning the long-term impact on morale and wellbeing of employees who are simply burned out,” Carey said.

She also pointed to new research conducted for the study, which will be published this week.

More than half of the 1,700 healthcare workers surveyed said that patients who were acutely ill with Covid sometimes did not receive the care they needed.

Ms Carey said this painted a picture of a “healthcare system creaking at the seams” and “enormously difficult decisions” had to be made.

She also cited the “undoubtedly indirect harm” caused by the need to focus on protecting NHS capacity for Covid patients.

This meant that elective care, such as hip and knee replacements, were suspended.

She also mentioned missed cancer diagnoses, people with heart problems staying out of hospital and dying in the community, and pregnant women delaying seeking care.

Ms Carey suggested that fear of contracting Covid or a desire not to overwhelm the NHS may have contributed to these issues.

She also described the deterioration in children and young people’s mental health during the pandemic as “distressing”, pointing to rising rates of mental health disorders and eating disorders in particular.

Video clips were played during the meeting, including one of Carole Anne sharing a story about her partner Craig, who died of a brain aneurysm during the pandemic.

Craig was unable to make an appointment due to limited access and fear of contracting Covid-19 in hospital, Ms Anne said.

When he died, the hospital specialist told her, “Craig didn’t die from Covid, he died as a result of Covid because he couldn’t be seen.”

The hearings for this module will run until December. It will take place after the conclusion of the hearings on pandemic preparedness and core decision-making.

Currently, a total of nine separate modules are planned, each with its own report.