The mortality rate for patients and staff who were infected in hospitals is horrifying and must be stopped from happening again ahead of a potential third wave.
On issues such as segregating patients on wards, PPE for frontline workers and testing patients who are discharged, there are critical questions around how prepared hospitals were and the resources they were provided.
The only way we can answer those questions is through a statutory inquiry, especially since the Government continually refuses to release their internal lessons learnt review.
The Government must bring it’s inquiry forward to this summer and include an interim report that includes best practices on preventing transmission within hospitals in the autumn of this year. Not doing so puts more lives at risk.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice response to Dominic Cummings select committee appearance.
Today is a horrible, upsetting and bleak day for the over 150,000 bereaved families across the country.
1/5
The evidence from Cummings is clear, that the government’s combination of grotesque chaos and uncaring flippancy is directly responsible for many of our loved ones not being with us today - and the refusal to have an urgent statutory inquiry risks others joining them.
2/5
That this information is being unveiled in a pantomime-style spat between Cummings and Johnson, littered with independence day, Jeff Goldblum and spiderman references, is utterly inappropriate and makes this even more appalling.
3/5
Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice statement on @BorisJohnson saying a “full proper public inquiry” will start this parliamentary session.
"An inquiry must begin this summer. The Prime Minister may feel he can wait for answers, but bereaved families certainly can’t.
1/6
"Learning lessons from the pandemic is critical to saving lives now and in the future.
The Prime Minister knows that and he's said as much. So why does he think it can wait?
Who delays learning critical lessons that can save lives?
2/6
“We know that the majority of the public support an independent inquiry and that 72% of those that do want one by the Autumn, so the Prime Minister needs to get on with it like the British public want.
3/6
Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice response to the Queens Speech:
"After a year in which over 150,000 lives have been lost under the Government’s watch, it is deeply upsetting to see the Prime Minister do nothing to acknowledge the bereaved in today’s Queen Speech.
1/4
The Government has refused to pledge even a penny to bereavement services, stalled on their commitment to social care reform and still refuses to give a timeline on when an inquiry can be expected.
Instead, they have prioritised taking steps to curtail judicial reviews.
2/4
It goes without saying that bereaved families would rather be at home with their loved ones than taking the Government to court, but the Government has now refused to meet with us on seven different occasions.
3/4
Our statement regarding reports that @BorisJohnson said "let the bodies pile high in their thousands" as revealed by @MailOnline
"Since June last year we have been calling for an independent, judge-led statutory public inquiry into the pandemic.
1/5
“Between then and now we have written seven times to the Prime Minister asking him to start an inquiry and to meet bereaved families. He has refused on every occasion.
2/5
“At the same time, according to reports he was suggesting the Government should ‘let the bodies pile high in their thousands’.
These ‘bodies’ were our loved ones.
Mothers and fathers, daughters and sons, brothers and sisters, grandparents, husbands and wives.
3/5
Our member Becky Kummer lost her father Peter to Covid-19 in April.
Hear her thoughts on how @BorisJohnson backtracking on meeting with the bereaved families after saying one thing to @SkyNews and another to the families makes her feel
@MichaelRosenYes explains why it's absolutely crucial for an inquiry to happen NOW rather than being kicked into touch way into the future. 2/5
@MichaelRosenYes shares his life-changing personal experience of Covid-19 and why this has motivated him to prevent others suffering in the same way. 3/5