UK entered pandemic ‘woefully unprepared’

Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary Jon Ashworth has said that ten years of Conservative failure ‘weakened our defences’ and meant the country went into the pandemic woefully unprepared.

Speaking to the Institute for Public Policy Research, Ashworth warned that the UK cannot be complacent about the future, highlighting how under-resourcing, underfunding, and a failure to invest in public health programmes worsened the NHS’s ability to combat coronavirus.

The UK went into the Covid crisis with 17,000 fewer NHS beds than in 2010, spending on health substantially lower than the historical average and with a health workforce smaller compared to other advanced economies. The Shadow Health Secretary says that the country cannot afford to make the same mistakes in future and say we must build health resilience and tackle health inequalities.

Labour would like to include introducing new statutory duties to plan, audit and invest in pandemic response, alongside obligatory training for ministers in ‘germ-gaming’ – in the same way that the military prepares for conflict scenarios.

Suggesting that the Heath Secretary should report annually to Parliament on pandemic preparedness and response, Labour would like to see pandemic planning through regular ‘germ games’ to prepare for future outbreaks. This is in addition to subjecting government pandemic preparedness plans to independent audit with a new OBR-style body looking at the UK’s health resilience.