Public health directors have delivered a withering assessment of the Government’s Covid-19 preparedness – warning Whitehall must fully utilise council expertise to avoid a catastrophic repeat.
Delivering their opening statements to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry today, the Local Government Association and Association of Directors of Public Health (ADPH) criticised the Government’s poor pandemic planning during the decade of austerity before 2020.
Legal counsel for the ADPH, Steven Ford KC, told inquiry chair Baroness Hallett: ‘There was… an insufficient understanding of the role, capabilities and responsibilities of directors of public health at a national level.’
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