Inquiry report shows ‘horrific’ Covid death toll among disabled people was not inevitable, say DPOs

A report by the Covid inquiry into political decision-making during the pandemic proves that the “horrific” and disproportionate death toll among disabled people was not inevitable but the result of treating them as an “afterthought”, say campaigners.

Four national disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) were responding to the second report of the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, led by Baroness Hallett, which focuses on “core decision-making and political governance”.

One DPO said this week that the report had delivered a “laser focus on the shocking missed opportunities, lack of timely planning and insufficient diversity among our political leaders”.

Another said the inquiry had shown that disabled people were an “afterthought” for the UK and devolved governments.

And a third said the report had made it clear that the harm caused to disabled people, including the disproportionate deaths, “was not inevitable”.

The four DPOs were each awarded the status of core participants during the inquiry’s second module.

Individuals or organisations with a “significant role or interest” in the inquiry’s work were able to apply for core participant status (PDF) for a particular module, which has allowed them to access evidence, make opening and closing statements at inquiry hearings, and suggest lines of questioning to the inquiry’s barristers.

The report from the inquiry’s second module found that the Conservative UK government repeatedly failed to take action to protect disabled people in the early months of the pandemic, even though their risk of dying was twice as high as non-disabled people (see separate story).

Nuala Toman, head of accessibility at the Northern Ireland DPO Disability Action, said: “The Covid-19 Inquiry lays bare a truth that cannot be ignored: the horrific disproportionate death toll among disabled people was not inevitable, but the result of political inaction, delays and a failure to treat disabled people as a priority.

“The [Northern Ireland Executive] should now move quickly to implement the recommendations.

“Any failure to act would be an eyes-wide-open decision to repeat the same injustice in the next pandemic.”

Heather Fisken, Inclusion Scotland’s chief executive, said the evidence laid out in the report was “stark”.

She said: “Too many people died needlessly and a disproportionate number of them were disabled people.

“As is often the case, disabled people were an afterthought.

“If there was ever any emergency planning before Covid, disabled people were unaware and not involved.

“As a consequence, when the pandemic struck, disabled people lost vital support, often overnight, and were put at increased risk of contracting Covid.

“Decisions to remedy this were slow to materialise, patchy and clearly insufficient.

“Governments need to take this learning forward and work with disabled people’s organisations.”

Kamran Mallick, chief executive of Disability Rights UK, said there was much in the report that disabled people and their representative organisations could use to influence government policy across the UK.

He said this included the recommendations that “disabled people should inform expert opinion that concerns our lives, and that the socio-economic duty in the Equality Act should be enacted”.

He said: “We are pleased to see it also says that frameworks should be developed to identify people who would be worst affected by disease and those who would be negatively impacted by pandemic measures, and that ministers representing people such as disabled people should be involved in decision-making.

“The inquiry was particularly emphatic that there should be plans to make all communications accessible, which we welcome as emphatically.

“DPOs need to use these recommendations to campaign for improved pandemic planning for disabled citizens, or we will see history repeat itself in the next public emergency.”

Rhian Davies, chief executive of Disability Wales, said the report had brought a “laser focus” to the “shocking missed opportunities, lack of timely planning and insufficient diversity among our political leaders and the role these played in the devastating and ongoing impact of the pandemic on disabled people, which ‘turned back the clock’ regarding our human rights.

“Baroness Hallett cited the comparatively more inclusive approach taken by Welsh government and the groundbreaking Locked Out report it commissioned into the impact of Covid-19 on disabled people.

“Nevertheless, Wales still had the highest number of deaths proportionately among disabled people from the virus.

“Welsh government’s imminent and long-awaited Disabled People’s Rights Plan provides ministers with the ideal opportunity to demonstrate that lessons have been learned and to outline what action will be taken to address the underlying causes regarding why the lives of disabled people appeared so expendable and to ensure that never again do we face ‘the mass death and real suffering’ experienced by so many.”

The inquiry’s second report concludes that all four governments failed to “appreciate the scale of the threat” posed by the pandemic in early 2020 or the “urgency of response it demanded”.

The inquiry report highlights misleading assurances from the UK government’s Department of Health and Social Care that the UK was well prepared to deal with a pandemic, while health and social care secretary Matt Hancock “gained a reputation among senior officials and advisers at 10 Downing Street for overpromising and underdelivering”.

The report from the inquiry’s second module concludes that although the various lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 saved lives, they only became “inevitable” because of the “acts and omissions” of the UK and devolved governments.

Without the lockdown on 23 March 2020, the growth in transmission of the virus would have led to an unacceptable loss of life, the inquiry found, but it says that governments’ failure to act promptly and effectively had put them in this position.

Had the lockdown been imposed a week earlier, it concludes, about 23,000 fewer people would have died in England up until 1 July 2020.

The inquiry’s public hearings will end by March 2026, with the final report scheduled to be published no later than summer 2027.

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