Boris Johnson seems determined to ignore any lessons from coronavirus. It’s not good enough

The government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis has been “world beating” only in delivering one of the highest death rates. When ministers refuse to acknowledge that anything could or should have been handled differently, how on earth will they learn from mistakes?

Britain was in no position to follow World Health Organisation guidance on testing and tracing because inadequate equipment and facilities, combined with fragmented and underfunded public health systems, meant they were rapidly overwhelmed.

We were late into lockdown, and for all the promises and ambitious targets, scant supplies of personal protective equipment left health and social care staff vulnerable to infection and increased the risk of transmission to patients. The decision to quarantine people arriving from overseas happened months after it could have helped to prevent the virus taking root across the UK.

Coronavirus has also starkly exposed pre-existing health inequalities, which disproportionately affected black, Asian and minority ethnic communities as well as other disadvantaged groups. Far from being the great leveller, it looks set to widen the gap in health for decades to come.

For young people, the education gap will be profound and they are likely to pay the highest price in the long term for the economic fallout, especially if that is then compounded by a no-deal Brexit at the end of this year.

And yet Boris Johnson insists he is “proud” of his record. At the time of writing, there have been over 64,000 more deaths since the start of the pandemic than would normally be expected based on the average over five years for the same period. The official figures presented at the daily briefings hugely underrepresent the true lethality of coronavirus across the UK.

Government claims that they had thrown an early protective ring around care homes are patently false. The death toll amongst residents and the impact on carers tell a different story and bereaved families are taking action. One of them is Cathy Gardner, whose father Michael Gibson died in an Oxfordshire care home in early April, after a patient who tested positive for the virus was discharged there from hospital. Gardner points to failings which led to large numbers of unnecessary deaths and serious illnesses, “aggravated by the making of wholly disingenuous, misleading and – in some cases – plainly false statements suggesting that everything necessary has been done to protect care homes during the pandemic”.

Her request for a judicial review cites the European Convention on Human Rights alleging that “policies and measures adopted by the health and social care secretary, NHS England and Public Health England have manifestly failed to protect the health, wellbeing and right to life of those residing and working in care homes”.

Gardner is not alone in accusing the government of misleading statements. The chair of the UK Statistics Authority, Sir David Norgrove, warned that statistics are being rendered incomprehensible and meaningless because “the aim seems to be to show the largest possible number of tests even at the expense of understanding”.

It is time for all public health officials and advisers who flank ministers at the daily briefings to insist on clarity and independence. Some, like Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, the deputy chief medical officer, and Ruth May, the chief nursing officer, have done so, but they have been exiled as a result. The televised daily briefings increasingly appear like a vehicle for delivering spin alongside the reports from “unnamed No 10 sources” that the briefings were originally set up to replace.

Trust lies at the heart of handling a public health emergency on this scale. What on earth are contact tracers to say to those who, like Dominic Cummings, want to pop back to their workplace first or to travel hundreds of miles with someone who is unwell, potentially seeding the virus elsewhere? It is extraordinary that the prime minister continues to undermine public health by placing the career survival of his adviser ahead of the need to protect communities and contain the virus.

In the absence of government transparency or willingness to learn lessons, we urgently need a rapid inquiry or parliamentary commission to make sure that we can learn from mistakes and prevent a second wave. There are many models. The Commission on Banking Standards, which was set up to provide a rapid response in the wake of the last financial scandal and collapse, is just one example.

A similar commission of both houses of parliament could take a wider look than is possible for a single select committee. It could benefit from cross-bench expertise in the Lords, instruct counsel and hear evidence in public with a number of specialist panels sitting simultaneously to allow for rapid advice to be given. A public health emergency would also allow for a no-blame approach to encourage maximum transparency and could be set up entirely independent from parliament and hosted by a health think tank. The advantage of the Commission on Banking Standards, however, was that having been set up with cross-party support and with a chair appointed by the prime minister, there was a commitment from the outset to pay attention to and implement its recommendations.

No one doubts the difficulty of balancing the health, educational and economic challenges ahead. The problem is there is serious doubt about the government’s willingness or capacity to learn the lessons necessary to do so.

Dr Sarah Wollaston is a GP, the former MP for Totnes and the former chair of the Health and Social Care Select Committee