Two of the most senior Labour ministers in Wales, including Mark Drakeford, have acknowledged failures in the nation’s pandemic planning.
Vaughan Gething, the former minister of health, stated that Wales was unprepared to cope with an increase in deaths.
Mr. Gething told the Covid inquiry that plans for a pandemic influenza pandemic would have left Wales vulnerable.
The Welsh first minister said the administration was unprepared.
However, Mark Drakeford defended the reality that resources were diverted from pandemic preparations to Brexit preparations.
Sir Frank Atherton, the chief medical officer, said on Monday that preparations for a no-deal Brexit hampered flu measures.
Mr. Gething said he could have accelerated preparations if he had spent more time on pandemic plans.
After the hearing, Conservatives and Plaid Cymru urged for a Wales-specific investigation into the pandemic.
Mr. Gething is presently the minister of the economy but served as the minister of health from 2016 to 2021.
The minister, when questioned by a barrister for the Welsh Covid bereaved families group, stated, “One of the things I found most difficult was the dignity of death and knowing what a bad death is, as well as understanding that this has a real impact on the people left behind.”
He stated that the work to increase capacity at mortuaries and crematoriums was “not finished.”
“As a result, when Covid arrived, we were not as prepared as we could have and should have been,” he said, adding that he accepted culpability.
We moved through PPE quickly.
Kate Blackwell, counsel for the inquiry, informed Mr. Gething that Wales’ PPE stockpile was “woefully inadequate” for the intended pandemic.
“We would consume PPE at a much faster rate than our planning assumptions predicted,” he said. “As a result, we discovered that our supply that was supposed to last for an entire wave did not.”
Then he added, “I believe it’s accurate to say that the plan for a pandemic influenza outbreak would have faced obstacles”.
It’s a loaded term, but based on the data, it was insufficient. The planning for a pandemic of influenza was incomplete, and we would have had vulnerabilities if one had occurred.
The ministry of health claimed that pandemic planning assumed influenza was the biggest threat.
Mr. Gething made this remark after confirming that he had not perused any documents, guidelines, or plans about civil emergencies and pandemic flu before preparing for the investigation.
Mr. Gething stated, “I did not read those upon assuming the position, as some of them were not intended for ministers to read.”
I would have no time for anything else if I studied all those documents and others in my brief.
He did state that he received briefings on the Welsh government’s pandemic preparedness, and he later added, “I didn’t question the assumption that an influenza pandemic was the most likely of the pandemic risks.”
Minister could have planned more thoroughly
In addition, the minister acknowledged that he had not read the Cygnus exercise report on pandemic flu preparation.
Kate Blackwell, the counsel for the inquiry, read a portion of the report’s findings, which concluded that the United Kingdom’s plans, policies, and capabilities were inadequate to meet the demands of a severe pandemic.
He stated that if he had read it, he would have “asked additional questions about what was occurring”
He stated that he had been briefed on the need for adjustments, which had been communicated to him by advisors.
However, he added, “Looking back, I believe it is fair to say that if I had devoted more ministerial time to this. I could have accelerated preparations.”
Mark Drakeford acknowledged shortcomings in his testimony but defended the work of the Welsh government.
“There were and continue to be significant shortcomings” in the government’s pandemic preparedness, said inquiry lead counsel Hugo Keith.
Planning lacked resiliency, resources, and updated policies, he said.
Mr. Drakeford acknowledged that the Welsh government was not as well-prepared as it could have been and that there were deficiencies, but argued that the council was being “unnecessarily pessimistic”
“While some things had not been completed, it was a partial failure, not a total one,” he said.
Mr. Keith pressed him, asking if Mr. Drakeford agreed that “the system of preparedness before the pandemic was simply not as good as it should have been” structurally.
The prime minister responded, “In that case, I would concur. Yes.”
Dangers lie in our path.
He told the inquiry that the Welsh government’s resources had to be redirected from pandemic preparations “to deal with the dangers of leaving the European Union without a deal, which is right in front of us.
“If we left the EU without a deal, the water supply could become useless. This is the type of imminent threat you are referring to,” he said.
He told the inquiry that when he became prime minister in 2018. He was not advised by civil servants that he should be aware of pandemic planning challenges.
Separately, he stated that the Welsh government did not deem it necessary to establish a Wales-specific risk assessment document outlining the risks that face the Welsh government.
When asked about the principle that all risks are local, Mr. Drakeford stated, “I’m not sure we would have seen a huge advantage in deducing Welsh-specific risks when the UK government process appeared to have the expertise to deliver it.
He went on to state that “from a Welsh perspective, it is prudent to rely on the UK government’s expertise and capacity for certain purposes, and we were content to do so at this time” and that creating a Welsh intermediate tier for a national risk register “did not justify the resources.
However, each of the four local resilience forums included a “community risk register” that included oil refinery incidents.
Requests for Welsh research
Following the hearing, Welsh Conservative health spokesman Russell George told that other regions of the United Kingdom “seemed to be more prepared” for a pandemic.
He stated, “As Welsh Conservatives, we are extremely eager for a Wales-specific public inquiry.
“The evidence presented today merely demonstrates that Wales did things very differently.” And the prime minister emphasized this on multiple occasions throughout the pandemic.”
Mabon ap Gwynfor, the health spokesman for Plaid Cymru, stated that the Welsh government’s dearth of preparation was “revelatory.”
He stated, “They assumed that everything was in place and completed. They were not.
“Therefore, we need an investigation in Wales, so that we can not only identify the weaknesses that we’ve had in Wales, of which a number have been highlighted.”
The health minister was criticized by Covid-19 Bereaved Families Group Cymru’s Anna-Louise Marsh-Rees.
“We must inquire about the function of the health minister. He had not read anything, had not inquired about anything, was not curious, and was not intrigued. The arrogance was incomprehensible. No surprise it all went wrong.”
