Chris Whitty to be questioned on ‘stay at home’ messaging at Covid inquiry

England’s main aesculapian serviceman is to beryllium quizzed connected the interaction the pandemic had connected the NHS.

Professor Sir Chris Whitty is to look questions erstwhile helium appears earlier the UK Covid-19 Inquiry connected Thursday.

Inquiry chairwoman Baroness Heather Hallett is examining the interaction of the situation connected NHS workers, patients and the transportation of healthcare.

Module 3 of the enquiry is looking astatine the governmental and societal effect to Covid-19 by assessing the interaction of the pandemic connected however NHS services were delivered.

This volition see however managers led the pandemic response, the relation of superior attraction and GPs, NHS backlogs, and however the vaccine programme was integrated.

The diagnosis of agelong Covid and the enactment offered to those affected volition besides beryllium examined.

Sir Chris, who became a well-known fig during the situation owed to his regular appearances astatine Downing Street property conferences, is apt to beryllium asked astir the “Stay Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives” messaging deployed astatine the commencement of the pandemic.

Former main nursing serviceman for England Dame Ruth May was asked astir the messaging erstwhile she appeared earlier the enquiry earlier successful the month.

Asked if the connection “got the equilibrium wrong”, she replied: “In hindsight I privation it was, ‘stay astatine location but not if you’re pregnant’… successful hindsight, yes.”

It comes arsenic a foundation said the Government “missed opportunities” to enactment the nation’s intelligence wellness during the pandemic.

A study from the Centre for Mental Health said the pandemic caused “collective trauma” from the effects of isolation, bereavement and fear, and longer word trauma of wellness attraction workers and the intelligence bequest among children and young radical of disrupted education.

Andy Bell, main enforcement of the foundation and co-author of the report, said: “The Covid-19 pandemic has deed the nation’s intelligence wellness hard.

“A deficiency of authorities planning, and the lack of immoderate strategy to mitigate harms, meant that some short-term and long-lasting intelligence wellness harms occurred that are inactive disposable 4 years on.

“It is genuinely shocking that radical with a intelligence unwellness were truthful disproportionately affected by the microorganism itself, exacerbating existing wellness inequalities and widening the already immense beingness expectancy gap.

“In the aftermath of the Darzi review, today’s study is yet much grounds that the NHS requires system-wide alteration to conscionable rising levels of request pursuing the pandemic.

“We telephone connected the Covid nationalist enquiry and the UK Government to instrumentality the grounds we person amassed earnestly and guarantee that we larn the close lessons from the pandemic astir its narration with the nation’s intelligence health.

“Sidelining intelligence wellness yet again volition permission america unprepared for aboriginal emergencies and their consequences. The people’s intelligence wellness deserves better.”