Sixth Report - Coronavirus: lessons learned to date

The government acknowledges the importance of positive learning and engagement with other countries. They describe ongoing efforts by the Cabinet Office to review and improve the National Security Risk Assessment (NSRA) methodology, considering ways to increase external expert accessibility and diversify challenge during the process.

The government acknowledges the importance of positive learning and international engagement for future emergencies. They detail ongoing work to review the NSRA methodology and increase external expert challenge, and commit to international frameworks for disaster risk reduction.

The government acknowledges the importance of greater questioning and challenge in policy development, stating ministers and SAGE should facilitate robust external and structured challenge to scientific advice.

The government acknowledges the need for greater questioning and challenge in future policy development, stating ministers and SAGE should facilitate robust external and structured challenge to scientific advice from a wider range of disciplines.

The government acknowledges that future policy development should include greater questioning and challenge, with ministers and SAGE facilitating robust external scrutiny of scientific advice.

The government stated that future policy development should involve greater questioning and challenge, with Ministers confidently probing scientific advice and SAGE facilitating strong external challenge from diverse disciplines, but did not specifically detail how interdisciplinary collaboration in modelling, particularly regarding economic costs, would be ensured.

The government acknowledges the importance of positive learning and international engagement for future emergencies, outlining efforts to review the NSRA methodology and enhance external expert challenge and international practice.

The government acknowledges the importance of public health communications and agrees that early messaging was strong and effective, but does not address the committee's conclusion that later guidance became increasingly complex and inconsistent.

The government acknowledges the test, trace, and isolate legacy by outlining plans to ensure a resilient infrastructure, work closely with local authorities for future tracing, and maintain UKHSA's local relationships.

The government acknowledges the observation by outlining its ‘Living with COVID-19’ strategy to build on the legacy of test, trace, and isolate, ensuring resilient infrastructure, working with local authorities for future contact tracing, and UKHSA maintaining local relationships.

The government acknowledges the committee's observation by outlining its strategy to build on the test, trace, and isolate legacy, ensuring resilient infrastructure, and working with local authorities for future contact tracing, with UKHSA maintaining local relationships.

The government acknowledges the need for a resilient and scalable infrastructure for test, trace, and isolate, committing to build on existing responses and work with local authorities and UKHSA for future public health emergencies, but does not specifically address the previous constraints in equipment and consumables.

The government states it will build on the pandemic response legacy and ensure resilient, scalable infrastructure, working with local authorities and UKHSA to protect against future health threats, as outlined in the ‘Living with COVID-19’ strategy.

The government recognises that previous exercises did not fully address a disease with COVID-19 characteristics and agrees that lessons, such as legislative drafting, can be learned for future outbreaks.

The government accepts the committee's finding that data sharing protocols were too slow to establish and become functional, particularly between national and local government.

The government acknowledges the demands placed on the NHS during the pandemic and states that this experience should lead to a more explicit and monitored surge capacity being integrated into the NHS's long-term organization and funding.

The government partially accepted the implicit recommendation, acknowledging the importance of learning from other countries and engaging with diverse experts. They highlighted existing international collaborations and stated the Cabinet Office is considering ways to increase external expert challenge within the National Risk Assessment process.

The government acknowledges the need for positive learning and engagement with other countries and disciplines for future emergencies. They outline ongoing work to review the NSRA methodology to enhance external expert challenge and diversity during risk assessment processes, and commit to international frameworks for disaster risk reduction.

The government acknowledges the impact of the pandemic on the social care sector and outlines the 'Build Back Better' plan, detailing reforms, a sustainable funding model, and proposals to bring health and social care sectors closer together to strengthen services.

The government acknowledges the pandemic's impact on social care and references its existing 'Build Back Better' plan for reform, sustainable funding, and closer integration of health and social care sectors.

The government accepts the committee's conclusion that Black, Asian and minority ethnic people experienced significantly higher levels of severe illness and death from COVID-19 due to features of inequality.

The government acknowledged the conclusion that inequalities persist for BAME staff in the NHS and care sectors, but did not commit to any specific actions in response.

The government states it accepts the committee's conclusion, thereby acknowledging the finding that people with learning disabilities experienced significantly higher COVID-19 death rates and faced particular barriers to accessing NHS treatment during the pandemic.