Thread by @nathan_oswin

It's two years today since then Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the setting up of a statutory public inquiry under the 2005 act into Covid-19 and his governments handling of the crisis.

What's happened since then?

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It would be a further 217 days before Johnson would announce the chair into the inquiry, Barroness Hallett, on 15 December 2021 following pressure from @CovidJusticeUK and others.

Three months later on 13 March 2022 the draft terms of reference would be passed to the chair.

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The inquiry held consultation events across the UK on these draft terms of reference for the PM to sign off and at long last, on 28 June 2022, over a full year since Johnson announced the inquiry, there were signed off terms of reference.

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Within those TOR (Terms of Reference) you'll find its aims are as pictured below:

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More aims under section 2:

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And thirdly:

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It finally states simply that it should:

"Identify the lessons to be learned from the above, to inform preparations for future pandemics across the UK."

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Since then we know of three (technically six but more on that later) formally established modules and what they are on. It's fair to say they are very substantial modules.

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Module one is into preperadness, covering a period between 2010 and 2020.

It's a hugely important module given significant policy changes, particularly on public service funding, during that decade.

How much did that impact their resilience? Many will say a huge amount.

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In that module there are 28 Core Participants,

Those can effectively be broken down into three groupings - state policy making (government departments etc), state delivery actors (often through collective representative bodies such as the LGA and NPCC) and impacted groups.

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In Module one their are just over 20% in that impacted category, with 6 from 28.

@CovidJusticeUK and bereaved family groups from devolved nations, @The_TUC and the BMA.

The TUC and BMA were originally turned down by gained CP status following appeals.

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Module 2 is into Government decision making on non-pharmacutical interventions excluding the vaccine.

This time we have 39 CPs and a rise in impacted groups to 48% with 19 of the 39.

The bereaved family groups, TUC and BMA remain as CPs from this grouping from.module one.

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Module 2 effectively then has sub-modules, though they are modules in their own right in a technical sense, all into Government decision making in devolved nations.

2a Scotland, 2b Wales, 2c Northern Ireland.

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2a sees 9 CPs with 4 of the 9 being impacted groups.

There is complexity with 2a given the devolved and independent Scottish inquiry.

There's a memorandums of understanding between the 2 inquiries you can view at covid19.public-inquiry.uk/document/memor…

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2b has 10 Core Participants with 4 from impacted groups.

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2c has 11 CPs with 4 from impacted groups.

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Onto module 3 into healthcare and potentially a huge module with 36 Core Participants.

By my counting it's 19 impacted groups here, the first module for more impacted groups that state mechanics as Core Participants.

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There's only one group across all 6 of these separate modules from the impacted groups designated as a Core Participant in each of them...

@The_TUC

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It's somewhat poignant on #InternationalNursesDay and the anniversary of the announcement of the Covid Inquiry that the one group given Core Participant status from impacted group is the TUC, giving workers a voice across all of those modules.

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Whilst these are the only known modules so far they won't be the last and more will be announced in due course.

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Whilst there has been criticism of how long the inquiry may take to deliver recommendations these tend to ignore the fact the inquiry has committed to publishing reports and recommendations following each module, rather than waiting years for the full inquiry to be completed.

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And that's in line with how the public think inquiries should work.

Polling in 2022 for @CrestAdvisory showed the public effectively thought if an inquiriy is worth doing it's worth doing well and taking time if needed.

You can read more polling at crestadvisory.com/post/2022-the-…

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The inquiry is likely to see significant senior figures from the last 10 years called before it with @MirrorPolitics highlighting a KC in a preliminary hearing suggesting both David Cameron and current Chancellor Jeremy Hunt would be called.

mirror.co.uk/news/politics/…

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It's also worth noting that Core Participants are having an impact with govt funding decisions seemingly in the cross hairs for module one and the appointment of experts into structural racism and considerations for module 2 having been fought for, and seemingly won, by CPs.

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The inquiry is something we all have a stake in, with each and everyone of us feeling the effects of government actions, or lack there of, during the pandemic.

As a nation it is the chance for us to look back, reflect and learn.

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Now the inquiry has to find the answers to what happened, ensure accountability for those decisions and ensure actions are taken to make the UK better prepared for a future pandemic.

Time will tell if it manages this.

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And that, as they say, is that.

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