The UK might be much less well-equipped to deal with a pandemic than it was earlier than Covid due to deteriorating well being inequalities, the disaster within the NHS and pressures in care properties, main specialists have warned.
The top of the British Medical Affiliation (BMA) stated that the general state of affairs meant the nation could be “nonetheless massively underprepared” when a brand new pandemic hit.
The primary report of the official Covid inquiry, revealed on Thursday, pointed to main failures in authorities planning and warned that extra should be achieved to enhance preparedness.
Pat McFadden, the Cupboard Workplace minister, whose division heads up emergency planning, advised the Commons on Friday that whereas there was extra to be achieved, “progress had been made” underneath the Conservatives in enhancing pandemic measures.
However a sequence of specialists say this could be fruitless given the worsening state of affairs in lots of different related areas, together with declining public well being and rising inequalities, a lot of it a operate of austerity insurance policies.
Sir Michael Marmot, professor of public well being at College School London and creator of a pair of landmark government-commissioned experiences into well being inequality, stated the impression of Covid confirmed his predictions that such a pandemic “would expose the underlying inequalities in society and amplify them”.
He stated: “The lesson to me is that to arrange for the subsequent pandemic, we have to put together to enhance the well being of the inhabitants. However the well being inequalities have gotten larger. We’re in a worse state now.”
Between 2010 and 2022, statistics for all times expectancy within the UK had been static, he stated.
“Over that 13 years, life expectancy didn’t enhance in any respect. I don’t know one other interval in peacetime since 1900 the place we’ve gone 13 years with out an enchancment in life expectancy.”
The Affiliation of Administrators of Public Well being, which represents native public well being leaders, echoed Marmot’s phrases, saying that enhancements in preventable diseases comparable to coronary heart illness and sort 2 diabetes would assist mitigate the impression of a brand new virus.
“It’s now well-evidenced that merchandise like alcohol, unhealthy meals, playing merchandise and fossil fuels are a powerful contributory issue to those non-communicable ailments,” stated Greg Fell, the affiliation’s president.
“Due to this fact, to change into extra resilient, we should spend money on decreasing the degrees of consumption of those dangerous merchandise.”
There was additionally a necessity to higher spend money on public well being, Fell added, saying that now there have been “merely not sufficient correctly skilled and resourced employees to hold out our function successfully”.
One other main weak spot raised was the state of the NHS, with Prof Philip Banfield, the chair of council on the BMA, saying the Covid report made it clear “that we’re nonetheless massively underprepared for when – not if – the subsequent pandemic hits”.
He stated: “We went into the pandemic with a sick inhabitants, with large well being inequalities, public well being companies stripped to the bone and the NHS and social care understaffed and under-resourced.
“None of this has improved since and, in lots of instances, has bought worse; this can not all be blamed on the pandemic itself.”
Dr Tim Cooksley, quick previous president of the Society for Acute Drugs, stated the impression of a brand new pandemic throughout an present winter disaster could be “merely unimaginable”.
He added: “The conclusion that we’re much less ready for a pandemic as we stand right now is indeniable. Acute hospital companies are collapsing.
“There may be inadequate workforce and capability to fulfill present calls for which results in sufferers struggling hurt and appalling circumstances every day. There are inadequate crucial care beds.”
The top of the College of Intensive Care Drugs, Dr Daniele Bryden, warned that the UK nonetheless didn’t have capability in hospital intensive care items to deal with a future pandemic, regardless of these having performed a key function throughout Covid.
This included an uneven distribution of beds and an absence of employees, she stated.
“Total, intensive care capability is just not but sufficiently sturdy to climate one other problem.”
Martin McKee, professor of public well being on the College of Hygiene and Tropical Drugs, stated that whereas Covid had supplied “a wealth of proof” to help in areas together with airborne transmission and coverings, there was little proof the UK was higher ready general than in 2020.
“NHS efficiency is demonstrably worse,” he stated. “Baby mortality, an indicator of social circumstances, is worse than in 2020 and inequalities by degree of deprivation and ethnicity have widened.”
Whereas Covid additionally highlighted methods to higher defend individuals in care from a pandemic – a module of the inquiry on this can report later – individuals within the care sector warned that it was not essentially any higher capable of cope.
Jane Townson, chief government of the Homecare Affiliation, which represents domiciliary care suppliers, stated: “Nothing has modified from earlier than. In reality, arguably issues are worse. The sector stays in a really weakened state.
“UK workforce numbers have decreased by 70,000 over the past two years. The expansion in workforce numbers has come solely from worldwide recruitment.”
Mike Padgham, chair of the Impartial Care Group, a membership organisation for care house operators, stated: “We’re as weak now as we had been in 2019. Solely this week we heard that social care is understaffed by some 131,000 and that an additional 540,000 social care employees shall be wanted by 2040 to deal with rising demand.
“That doesn’t converse to me of a sector that’s prepared for something the world can throw at it – it says precisely the other.”
