Thread by @adavies4

NEW: The UK Government & Public Health England deny ‘intercepting’ Covid-19 tests last March, supposedly destined for Wales, to prioritise England

It follows accusations made in private emails now released to @Channel4News

UPDATE on previous 'mystery of collapsed deal’ thread

https://twitter.com/adavies4/status/1244722327562133505

I began looking into this in March 2020. After several FOI requests [all initially refused], an appeal [refused] & a complaint to the @ICOnews [resolved],13 months on, some details have finally been disclosed to me. Bear with me pls: it’s complex, but hopefully provides more info

It centres around a story [initially broken by @BBCWalesNews last March] that a major Covid-19 test deal for Wales had apparently collapsed.
In the following days on #c4news we revealed the company involved to be the pharmaceutical giant @roche⬇️
channel4.com/news/questions…

It mattered.
The world had just been told to ‘Test! Test! Test!’ by @WHO to stop the virus spreading. Everyone wanted Covid tests. Wales was only providing c. 500/day at the time - such a deal, which @fmwales claimed hadn’t ‘been honoured’, would have provided 5000 TESTS per day

It had clearly been fundamental to the @WelshGovernment's public pledge to offer 'up to 9000 tests per day in Wales' by end April 2020...

gov.wales/written-statem…

The Welsh health minister @vaughangething told me [see below exchange]:

“There’s no getting away from the fact that those additional tests that we were due to have would have made an earlier difference for us”

pscp.tv/WelshGovernmen…

Roche (repeatedly) denied they’d had a specific deal with Wales.

Then came a bombshell allegation: if there had been a deal, the UK Gov had effectively scuppered it to gazump Wales.

It was discussed in this exchange between @RhunapIorwerth & @PublicHealthW CEO Tracey Cooper

Plaid Cymru called the whole affair a ‘national scandal’. The UK Government denied intervening. So what exactly had happened? And what was the detail of the deal?

Silence ensued. It was clear the Welsh Government and others felt enough had been said.

My original FOI request to the Welsh Government was denied on the grounds that such disclosure “would, or would be likely to prejudice relations between two or more United Kingdom administrations”

Fast forward 13 months and, after the ICO requested the Welsh Gov reconsider my request, correspondence from the time has finally been disclosed to me

In it, the CEO of Public Health Wales makes very serious allegations about the deal they claim they’d secured with @Roche

In one email [22/3/20, to Wales’ most senior health officials incl the Chief Medical Officer], PHW boss Tracey Cooper gives her account. She says there’d been “discussions with Roche since the 2 March” on the basis of them providing “up to 5000 Covid-19 tests per day”

[Background info: Magden Park is a Public Health Wales lab in Llantrisant. The process would have involved 2 stages:

1. Roche coming in to configure the testing machines/platforms so they could run the new Covid tests

2. Roche providing the actual tests - possibly these ⬇️]

Discussions had progressed, but then Public Health Wales reports hearing in mid-March that “Roche had been called into a meeting with UK Gov...& were instructed to reserve all the additional tests they had to be used in England and after, by agreement with DAs [Devolved Admins]”

Tracey Cooper claims this was later confirmed to her by Alex Sienkiewicz at Public Health England on 18th March.

Sienkiewicz is Director of @PublicHealthEng at Porton Down who, it turns out, had just been tasked separately by UK Gov to strike a [UK Gov] deal with Roche.

Tracey Cooper @tcooper321 claims that a ‘trade off’ was then agreed to get the Welsh Roche tests deal back on.

The alleged ‘trade off’ essentially involved Wales lending Public Health England a spare Covid testing machine [held by the Welsh Blood Service] in return for [what Cooper thought] was @PublicHealthEng helping to revive Wales’s 5000 tests/day deal with Roche...

Tracey Cooper later emails PHE’s Alex Sienkiewicz outlining her understanding of this ‘trade off’.

He replies ‘this is an excellent summary of our agreement’ & says Lord Bethell @JimBethell [UK Gov health minister] will be advised accordingly.

Still with me?!

Ok. Remember: this is largely Public Health Wales’s version of events [and as you’ll discover is about to be very much disputed].

It’s now 22 March 2020.
Suddenly, according to PHW’s boss, the Roche deal is off...again:

“We understand that Porton Down [Public Health England] intercepted the order…”

Tracey Cooper tells colleagues that the ‘political context in England’ is dictating events - and that it now transpires, to her evident surprise, that there are only 5000 Roche Covid-19 tests per day for the WHOLE of the UK.

Cooper: “It is clear that they [Roche] have no plan to come to Wales….and that they are being instructed by DHSC and following those instructions”

[Background: David Heyburn mentioned below is the Operations Head for microbiology at PHW]

Cooper describes a “rather chaotic situation” where agreements made are “not being honoured”.

And then she points the finger directly at the UK Government. She claims it “clearly prioritised the use of a company’s testing for the purposes of England’s allocation”

Clearly anxious about Wales’s existing testing capabilities, PHW cancels the loan of testing equipment to England [this would eventually be reinstated].

The second extract below gives you a sense of just how much mistrust of the UK Gov there now was within Public Health Wales.

On 23/3/20, having received Tracey Cooper’s summary, the Welsh health minister Vaughan Gething emails the head of the Welsh NHS:

“If nothing arises from the SPAD conversation...I will contact MH by 1pm”.
[am told MH = Matt Hancock]

I’ve spoken to people with direct knowledge of events from the Welsh perspective [tried elsewhere also]. No contract had been drawn up, but it’s clear PHW thought they had a very strong verbal agreement with Roche.

It certainly appears now that Public Health Wales started negotiating with Roche before the UK Government did...

I’m told people were “furious” & “distraught” about what happened, which was described to me by one person as “carnage”.

They added: “How do you fill a gap of 5000 tests a day? It was utter chaos.”

So here it is. These are the email chains, in full, as requested over a year ago and now disclosed to #c4news by @WelshGovernment in the FOI request...

EMAIL CHAIN 1/3

[This is the Public Health Wales boss explaining what she think happened with the Roche tests - subsequently forwarded to Welsh health minister Vaughan Gething, plus letter to me from Welsh Gov explaining FOI release]

#c4news

EMAIL CHAIN 2/3
[correspondence between Tracey Cooper from Public Health Wales & Alex Sienkiewicz from Public Health England]
#c4news

EMAIL CHAIN 3/3
[including emails from Roche's 'market manager' to Public Health Wales boss]
#c4news

In light of these emails, I asked the UK Government @DHSCgovuk again to respond to the claim that they effectively big-footed a deal, which the Welsh Government claimed it had secured, in order to prioritise England?

Their response: “Untrue”

STATEMENT BY UK GOV DHSC ⬇️

Working on this with my brilliant colleague @c4marcus, we sent a series of questions to Public Health England as well. They also dispute the account as given by Tracey Cooper in the email summary from 22 March 2020 [Email Chain 1].

To crudely summarise the UK Gov/PHE version of events:
Roche approached UK Gov in mid March [I understand there was a meeting at Downing St on 17 March] offering 5000 tests a day across the WHOLE of the UK.

This was eventually tasked to PHE to coordinate on a 4 nation basis.

So Wales [like other UK nations] did eventually get their Roche tests - but only around 10% of the 5000 they’d originally been expecting. The arrangement [which PHE says has given Wales more than 2x its population share] remains in place today.

Public Health England disputes Ms Cooper’s account of the ‘trade off’ - claiming, in return for Welsh testing equipment, PHE only agreed to task Roche to “accelerate the enablement of the PHW machines to run “UP TO 5000 TESTS IN THE FUTURE”

So Public Health England is effectively saying:

If Wales had an agreement with Roche for a minimum 5000 tests per day, it was news to us. We were just helping them to get Roche to upgrade equipment with the POTENTIAL for ‘up to 5000 tests’.

@PublicHealthEng STATEMENT⬇️

[BTW: PHWales already had arrangements with Roche to run infection tests [re sexual health]. But they needed Roche to adapt the existing machines [software] in Llantrisant to enable Roche's then new Covid PCR test. 'X800' in docs refers to Roche's 'Cobas 6800' or '8800' systems]

And Roche? They’ve consistently denied having a separate Covid test agreement with Wales.
But they do now say this:

“Roche & Public Health Wales were in communication during March 2020 only to discuss the setting up of equipment to run COVID-19 testing"

@Roche STATEMENT ⬇️

So crucially what exactly did Public Health Wales agree with Roche? Roche says one thing. Public Health Wales another.

Did Public Health Wales overstate to their political bosses what they could achieve?

Their answer in short: NO.

In their latest statement to us, Public Health Wales claims that they had had ‘advanced discussions’ with Roche over a 5000/day test deal...

PUBLIC HEALTH WALES: “It subsequently became apparent that similar conversations between the UK Government and different Roche representatives were also underway to access the same testing kits”

@PublicHealthW STATEMENT ⬇️
#C4News

Which raises the obvious & important question:

Were there 2 different Roche representatives negotiating with two different UK governments, unaware of what the other was doing?

We went back to Roche and asked:

Did Roche have separate reps “simultaneously trying to secure agreements with 2 UK governments but only ever with enough resources to supply one government with 5000 tests per day”?

The answer came back: NO

Roche: "We also reject any suggestion that Roche was having similar negotiations with both the UK and Welsh Governments to access the same testing kits."

If you’re still reading this [you deserve a v large glass of something!]...

It is vastly complex. PHW say their understanding of the situation at the time isn’t as it is now.

But, still, accounts differ markedly. There isn’t consensus on this matter. There may never be...

There are questions for all here, including both governments...

Should the Welsh Government have promised its population a much needed extra 5000 tests before getting a contract in place?

When did the UK Government find out about Roche’s dealings with Wales? Did they contact the Welsh Gov to discuss?

What’s v clear is that it was a highly stressful time for all those public health officials trying to secure tests for their respective UK nations. People were working flat out. 4 NHS organisations were effectively competing against one another over then scarce global supplies.

If there is a lesson from this whole story, perhaps it involves the need to better coordinate - for the future - a much more cohesive 4 nation approach to such a vital public health strategy as infection testing.

Thanks VERY much for reading.

THE END...for now!

P.s. for anyone wondering about timing of this FOI release by Welsh Gov, it came after the ICO wrote to them last month inviting disclosure [ICO took months to investigate...they have a significant backlog of cases]

...and similarly on why it's taken since 12th April for us to publish: we needed some time to better understand the context around the emails & invite responses. We shared the FOI emails with UK Gov; PHE; PHW; & Roche for them to consider in full.