NEVER AGAIN

Leaders 'failed their citizens and disguised incomplete tasks' | Inquiry chief demands action on 10 major recommendations

- ANDREW QUINN

THE UK and Scottish governments were found to have "failed their citizens" in response to the pandemic, a damning report has found.

Inquiry chairwoman Baroness Heather Hallett urged the new UK Government and devolved administrations to take action on 10 major recommendations after she published the findings of the investigation into "resilience and preparedness".

First Minister John Swinney vowed yesterday to "carefully consider" the recommendations made by the UK Covid-19 Inquiry.

The report found governments "failed their citizens" and used "jargon and euphemism to disguise... tasks that had not been completed".

It found the UK's pandemic plan for flu, written in 2011, "was outdated", and also suggested mitigating "group-think" by scientists.

Swinney, who was previously Covid recovery secretary, said: "Families across the country lost loved ones to the Covid-19 pandemic and I offer my deepest sympathies to all those who have experienced pain and grief as a result.

"The Scottish Government will carefully consider the recommendations made by Baroness Hallett and provide detailed responses to the recommendations within the timescales that have been set out.

"The implementation of recommendations will require collaboration with our counterparts across the four nations and the Scottish Government is committed to working together in a way which allows us to best prevent, prepare for and respond to future events.

Baroness Hallett identified a "flawed approach to risk assessment", failure to learn from past outbreaks of disease, and ministers not receiving a broad enough range of scientific advice and failing to challenge it, as contributing to the harms.

The report said 235,000 deaths involving Covid had been recorded in the UK by the end of 2023 including more than 17,000 in Scotland.