NHS 'came close to collapse' during COVID-19 pandemic, inquiry finds

The NHS "came close to collapse" during the pandemic, the chair of the UK COVID-19 Inquiry has said.

"We coped, but only just," Baroness Heather Hallett concluded in the inquiry's third report, released on Thursday.

She said UK healthcare systems "teetered on the brink of total collapse".

Module 3, the third of the inquiry's 10 investigations, has examined the impact of COVID on healthcare systems across the four nations.

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It investigated how governments and society responded to the pandemic, the capacity of healthcare systems to adapt and the impact on patients, their loved ones and healthcare workers.

The report, based on the testimony of 97 witnesses, found the UK entered the pandemic "ill-prepared", with this fragility leading to "profound consequences" once the crisis hit.

It says that, despite the best efforts of healthcare workers, many COVID patients did not receive the care they would otherwise receive, and non-COVID patients had their diagnoses and treatment delayed.

Baroness Hallett said healthcare workers "carried the burden of caring for the sick in unprecedented numbers" during the pandemic.

"It came at a huge cost to them, their families, their patients and the loved ones of patients," she added.

The system's collapse was only "narrowly avoided thanks to the extraordinary efforts" of healthcare workers, she said.

Baroness Hallett said: "The enormous strain placed upon the healthcare systems was unprecedented.

"Those working within it were obliged to work under intolerable pressure for months on end."

The report makes 10 recommendations "to prevent healthcare systems being overwhelmed in the next pandemic".

These include increasing capacity in urgent and emergency care and ensuring hospitals have "surge" capacity, strengthening the body responsible for infection prevention and control guidance, and better advance care planning.

Campaign group COVID-19 Bereaved Families For Justice labelled the report and its conclusions as "utterly damning".

It said the "devastating" impact on UK healthcare systems during the pandemic could have been avoided.

"Years of austerity left the NHS dangerously exposed, without the staff, beds or resilience needed to withstand a major shock," the group said.

"That was a political choice.

"And when the pandemic hit, those in power failed us again.

"They failed to act early enough, failed to follow the evidence, and failed to respond with the urgency the moment demanded."

Looking ahead, the group says the UK's health service is now in a worse position to cope with another pandemic than it was six years ago.

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It says the current meningitis outbreak in Kent "underlines why restoring resilience and capacity to our health system should be a matter of priority for those in power".

"That's why what happens now is so important. This report must not be left to gather dust and its recommendations should be the floor, not the ceiling, of the government's ambitions.

"We urge the government to use this report as a catalyst for change. Failing to do so would be unforgivable."

A government spokesperson said "it is committed to learning the lessons of the COVID Inquiry".

They added: "We will consider Baroness Hallett's findings and recommendations carefully and respond in full in due course."

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