Today's scathing Covid inquiry report into the UK's pandemic readiness has revealed the 'true horror' of how under-prepared the nation was, medical leaders have said. 

Covid inquiry chair, Baroness Heather Hallett today delivered her first report into the Government response to the pandemic, examining how, or if, the nation was prepared for such an emergency.

Her scathing report found ministers and Government had failed to prepare the UK for an 'entirely foreseeable' pandemic, making the human economic toll worse than it could have been.

At least 235,000 Brits are thought to have been killed by the virus since the pandemic began, with further fatalities caused by the disruption to the NHS and regulars screening for health issues like cancer.

Families, communities and businesses were also torn apart by a series of paralysing lockdowns ministers brought it in an attempt to curb Covid's spread.

Responding to the inquiry report, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said: ‘Today’s report confirms what many have always believed - that the UK was under-prepared for Covid 19, and that process, planning and policy across all four nations failed UK citizens.

‘The safety and security of the country should always be the first priority, and this Government is committed to learning the lessons from the inquiry and putting better measures in place to protect and prepare us from the impact of any future pandemic.’

Head of the doctors' union the British Medical Association, Professor Philip Banfield said: 'This report reveals in all its true horror how appallingly under-prepared the governments were for the pandemic, that processes failed us as citizens, and that lives could have been saved.' 

'We knew that when the pandemic began our healthcare services were already struggling to cope and ‘running hot’ because of years of neglect and under investment by the Conservative Government.

​'This report lays bare how, time and time again, ministers were told that we simply did not have enough staff or resources to cope with the predictable huge surge in demand for healthcare that a pandemic would bring. It shows just how many times governments ignored key findings.' 

Professor Banfield highlighted how 13 out of 14 pandemic simulation exercises held up until 2018 identified a lack of appropriate staff numbers and PPE in the NHS for a massive surge patients. 

PPE supplies were a critical issue in the early stages of the pandemic with reports of NHS staff having to purchase their own, and parts of the system like social care having to go without.   

Echoing warnings from Baroness ​Hallett that it was a question of 'when' not 'if' another pandemic strikes Professor Banfield added that the UK was unprepared for such an emergency. 

​'The BMA finds that the UK is still poorly equipped, understaffed and underprepared to manage a future pandemic when it comes,' he said.  

'Today’s report makes clear the urgency of improving the UK’s preparedness. That is a monumental and wide-ranging task for the new Government, that Baroness Hallet specifically states will need significant funding.' 

'Baroness Hallet’s report says the UK government and devolved administrations and civil services "failed their citizens." This cannot be allowed to happen again. There are several more reports to come in this inquiry, but change needs to start now.'

Fellow medical union, the Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association, leader Dr Naru Narayanan, added: 'This lays bare the dereliction of duty at the top in the years leading up to the worst global healthcare emergency of modern times.'

He continued: 'Complacency in Government left us grossly unprepared in the complete absence of any serious planning for a Covid-style pandemic. 

'The false economy of underfunding NHS services left them in the worst possible place in the run-up to 2020.

'Our hospital doctor members, their colleagues, patients and the wider public were all victims of this incompetent lack of contingency planning and effectively left to fend for themselves when the pandemic hit.' 

Dr Narayanan said the inquiry's recommendations must be 'implemented in full and without delay' adding that 'those responsible must be held to account'.

A spokesperson for the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK group, speaking outside the inquiry, welcomed the report and its recommendations.

However, they added they felt the inquiry hadn't gone far enough.  

'While the inquiry has diagnosed much of what undermined our response, Lady Hallett has not gone far enough in setting out how we can challenge, address and improve inequalities and capacity of public services as opposed to just understanding the effects of these failures. 

'We ask for this government to produce a plan to address health inequalities and in its first 100 days conduct a cross-departmental audit into pandemic preparedness.

'We are also calling for the government to establish a minister for resilience and preparedness. We need somebody with ultimate responsibility for an emergency response who we can hold to account.'

Scientists specialising in pandemic research praised the report's findings and criticism of the UK's preparedness for such an emergency.

Professor Mark Woolhouse, an expert in infectious disease epidemiology, said the report correctly identified a failure to consider the impact of lockdowns. 

'Government risk assessments were inadequate in that they failed to consider the wider impact of the pandemic beyond public health,' he said.

'The report confirms that no work had been done to understand and mitigate the socio-economic harms done by lockdowns, which made it almost impossible to know whether or not they were a proportionate response to the crisis at hand. 

'For the future, the report recommends “consideration of the interventions that can and should be deployed to prevent a lockdown”, though it does not take lockdown off the table entirely.' 

He added another important consideration, identified by the inquiry, was how scientific advice on pandemics was sought by ministers.

'Scientific advisory groups did not set their own agendas, instead they reacted to requests from government,' he said.

'In the future, greater autonomy of advisory committees is needed, as I told the Inquiry myself, you can’t always trust governments to ask the right questions.'

Professor Danny Altmann, an expert in Immunology at Imperial College London, was another who praised the report.

'I’m impressed by the seriousness and comprehensiveness of this Module 1 report and think Baroness Hallett and the inquiry team deserve huge praise,' he said.

'We’ve lived through the worst disaster in our recent history, with upwards of 230,000 deaths, making us one of the most badly affected Western nations.

'In terms of responsible governance, if we had lost that number to, say, a Tsunami, we’d have an enormous inquiry to investigate all the nuts and bolts of future mitigation and best practice, so why not even more so for the inevitable likelihood of another viral pandemic.' 

This module of the inquiry, examining pandemic preparations before Covid struck, was held 23 days of public hearings held in central London during June and July last year.

Other modules include examining the decision-making process in the pandemic across the UK, impact of Covid in British healthcare systems, vaccines, PPE procurement, the care sector, the pandemic's effect on children and the economy. 

The probe, as a whole, is not expected to conclude its public hearings until 2026 and is expected to cost around £200 million.