Brexit was said to have affected planning
By David Deans
BBC Wales political reporter
Preparations for a no-deal Brexit held work to plan for a future flu pandemic, Wales’ most senior medical adviser has said.
Sir Frank Atherton told the Covid inquiry that Operation Yellowhammer saw resources moved to other issues.
He told a hearing in London that work “stalled” in the years before the country was hit by Covid.
The chief medical officer also said there had been no debate in government on how to deal with a non-flu pandemic.
He said the matter had been “somewhat prematurely dismissed”.
A key guidance document on a future pandemic had not been updated since 2011, the inquiry was told, and emails from 2019 showed concern the country was not prepared to deal with a high consequence infectious disease.
Sir Frank was the first Welsh official to give evidence to the inquiry.
Following the hearing, Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth said it was clear “pandemic planning in Wales was seriously inadequate”.
The inquiry heard that the Welsh government’s Wales pandemic flu preparedness group met for the last time in September 2018 and did not sit again.
Emails from July 2018 revealed that officials had concerns about resources, and that a lack of progress in reviewing pandemic guidance posed a risk to the Welsh government.
At one point, a note went to health minister Vaughan Gething that progress was not as fast “as anticipated”.
Sir Frank Atherton is the first Welsh official to speak at the Covid inquiry
Sir Frank agreed when lead counsel to the inquiry, Hugo Keith, put it to him that no resources had been committed to pandemic planning, and no further work was done.
“The reason for that, for progress then to stall, was that resources were moved to other issues,” he said, adding he was referring to preparations for a no deal Brexit.
He added: “The work all stalled.”
A meeting held in September 2017 of the Wales Pandemic Flu Preparedness Group identified a number of “strategic documents” that needed to be changed in light of findings following a flu preparedness exercise, Exercise Cygnus.
Sir Frank said he didn’t think any of them were finally updated, suggesting it was a “UK process” that would see them updated.He added that in terms of planning, the strategy was based on a document from 2011 and the planning was “hinging” on a UK group updating that strategy.”The master document was seen, and always seen, as the 2011 strategy and everything else seems to be hinging on that,” he said. “But there was no updating of strategy documents, it was all hinged on the 2011 strategy update.”
Much of the discussion centred on preparations for a pandemic caused by flu.
But Covid was caused by a coronavirus, which behaves differently. Sir Frank told the inquiry there had been no debate on how to deal with a pandemic that was not caused by influenza.
“With the benefit of hindsight we could and should have paid more attention to the ‘what if’ questions – ‘what if the virus was so different,” he said.
“At the time, I think it’s fair to say that those measures had been considered and somewhat prematurely dismissed.”
The hearing also heard emails from Public Health Wales from 2019 that the country was “not adequately prepared” to deal with high consequence infectious disease.
The emails refer to the two people from west Wales who were low risk contacts of a Monkeypox case.
The official said there was “some urgent work to be done to provide the necessary assurances that NHS Wales could effectively respond to a case or cases of high consequence infectious disease anywhere in the country”.
Chief Medical Office Sir Frank Atherton acknowledged that “highly specialised contained facilities were required on a level that we did not have in Wales” and that he had attempted to strengthen the system.
Sir Frank told the inquiry his office had been under-resourced when Covid began.
He said it had been “drowning in a sea of information” at the start of the pandemic, and “couldn’t even manage emails”.
Dr Andrew Goodall, the permanent secretary of the Welsh government, also gave evidence on Tuesday.
He had been chief executive of the Welsh NHS when the Covid outbreak began.
The inquiry heard more than one task and finish groups that had been set up to look at pandemics.
Dr Andrew Goodall told the Covid inquiry not all the recommendations they drew up were implemented.
“They were given the task but they didn’t finish?” asked Baroness Hallet, who led the inquiry.
“Yes they did not finish the task,” he replied.
