Wales' First Minister to face UK Covid 19 Inquiry

Wales' First Minister Mark Drakeford is to give evidence at the UK Covid 19 inquiry later.

Wales' former Health Minster Vaughan Gething is also due face questions at the hearing in London.

Yesterday was the first time the panel had heard from officials from Wales regarding the pandemic with the Chief Medical Officer Sir Frank Atherton and former Chief Executive of the NHS in Wales Dr Andrew Goodall appearing.

Wales' CMO told the inquiry on Monday that work to plan for potential future health emergencies had all but stopped by 2019 due to Operation Yellowhammer, which diverted resources to preparing for a possible no-deal Brexit.

Meanwhile, counsel to the inquiry Hugo Keith displayed a chart illustrating the array of groups and bodies in place to look at various aspects of pandemic response in Wales, calling it a "remarkably complex labyrinthine system".

Dr Andrew Goodall, who was chief executive of the NHS in Wales when the pandemic hit, said there was a need for the system to be streamlined and that in the past, a number of the groups formed had not achieved all of their objectives.

On the fourth day of public hearings, the inquiry also heard how measures to deal with non-flu pandemics including mask wearing, mass diagnostic testing and quarantining were "prematurely dismissed".

And that despite concerns being raised about the need to update pandemic-related documents, such guidance and policies had not been substantially changed since 2011.

Sir Frank, who became a household name due to frequently appearing at Welsh government coronavirus press conferences throughout the pandemic, said it was his role to give advice to ministers "freely and impartially".

He said while ministers were always "receptive" to his advice they "did not always follow the advice closely or diligently".

He said to Baroness Hallett, chair of the inquiry, that his office had been under-resourced when coronavirus emerged and described "drowning in a sea of information" at the beginning of the pandemic.

"We couldn't even manage emails," Sir Frank told the chair.

"That led to a process over a period of time to try to get some additional resource."

Baroness Hallett said: "Basically, in getting the additional resource, that was an acknowledgement that you were under-resourced in the first place?"

"I would agree with that," Sir Frank said.

Sir Frank denied there was "insufficient focus or attention" on pandemic preparedness and claimed that "on an official level there was quite a lot of work going on around preparedness".

"As ever you could say 'could more have been done?' That may be a valid question," he said.

Dr Goodall began his evidence by helping explain Wales' devolutionary powers and how by 2018 most of the responsibilities over civil contingencies had been transferred to the Senedd.

After Mr Keith again commented on the "plethora" of local, regional and national groups that existed to look at such emergencies, Mr Goodall accepted there was "duplication" and "too many arrangements in place" and that it "took too long to implement recommendations".

Warnings about the impact of such fragmented and complicated working on Wales' resilience were present in reports from as far back as 2012, the inquiry heard.

Mr Goodall will continue his evidence on Tuesday morning, followed by the First Minister of Wales Mark Drakeford and former health minister Vaughan Gething.

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