Former Wales Health Minister says 'strained relations' with UK Government hindered pandemic planning
The former Welsh Health Minister Vaughan Gething has said that strained relations with the UK Government hampered pre-pandemic plans in Wales.
Mr Gething was giving evidence to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry chaired by Baroness Hallett.
He was asked by the inquiry’s barrister if what she described as “the strained ministerial relations” between UK and Welsh Governments hampered preparedness in Wales.
He said “Yes I do think they had an effect” and added that “In no-deal Brexit preparation, I did not meet the [UK] cabinet minister for health whether it was Mr Hancock or Mr Hunt and again that’s a choice [by them] When you then have to deal with other as we did … I think that is suboptimal.”
He went on to add that preparedness “would have been assisted, if despite the fact that we are politically very competitive especially around the politics of the health service ,there should always be room for some pragmatism and you have to do business.
“You don’t have to like the person on the other side of the desk but you should from time to time meet.”
Mr Gething later admitted that he could have sped up plans to prepare for a pandemic if he had given it more of his time.Mr Gething told the UK Covid-19 Inquiry that he had been given briefings by officials about a series of reports on preparedness but hadn’t read them directly.And he acknowledged that “Looking back I think it’s fair to say that if I had put more ministerial time into this then I may well have sped up preparedness.” (14:21:19)He echoed what other witnesses had said previously, that all of the UK’s governments were planning for a flu-type pandemic rather than a respiratory illness like covid.
He said that “Our collective planning assumptions did not stand up against reality. So they were not adequate for the challenge we then faced” (14:35:53)
He Vaughan Gething has admitted that incomplete plans for a pandemic led to “additional pain for bereaved families” when the covid outbreak happened.
Asked by Laura Shepherd, the barrister for bereaved families, about the number of excess deaths from covid, he told the UK Covid-19 inquiry that “one of the things I found most difficult was the dignity in death.”
Referring to Welsh Government preparedness, he said that “all of this work was not fully completed and that meant that when covid came we were not as prepared as we could and should have been and that does, yes, Ms Shepherd, lead to additional pain for bereaved families”
Asked again if that was his responsibility. Mr Gething said “Yes I’m the minister in the government, of course it’s my responsibility”