Little change in NI after Covid-19 - barrister

A barrister representing families bereaved by Covid-19 has told the UK Covid Inquiry that it is "a sobering reality" that little has changed in Northern Ireland almost five years on from the beginning of the pandemic.

Brenda Campbell KC appealed to Northern Ireland's leaders "to commit to working with the bereaved and with all affected to ensure lasting change".

She made the call during her closing statement for module three of the inquiry, looking at the impact of the pandemic on healthcare systems across the UK.

Ms Campbell added that it should not be for the bereaved, or the disabled or migrant workers to continue to force change, but that "the solution has to be homemade".

"The Northern Irish Covid bereaved are unwavering in their commitment to ensuring that the posthumous legacy of those we have lost is a brighter future for those who are still here.

"But they cannot achieve that alone," she said.

Ms Campbell questioned "is the future brighter for long covid sufferers and importantly if a pandemic hit tomorrow would the outcome for the bereaved be any different?"

The barrister told the inquiry that she hoped "it was not too presumptuous to predict" that one of its recommendations will be in relation to communication.

She said the Covid bereaved families repeatedly asked what lessons have been learned and wanted to know what can be done better.

She said that the people in power were not always in the room during the inquriy.

She added that bereaved family members were "reduced to the hope that those who can implement the lessons learned...had at least one ear to the livestream or would cast an eye over the transcript".

Ms Campbell criticised the Department of Health's previous closing statement in which she said they concluded that "the evidence was in part wrong or had been misunderstood or required to be refuted" leading to a familiar game of "Northern Ireland finger pointing between the Department and the Public Health Agency as to who knew what or should have known what".

But she said it was "important to emphasise that this inquiry is not about proportioning blame".

Covid-19 was an "entirely novel and unprecedented virus", and she recognised people were "striving to do their best even if retrospectively it was apparent things could be done better".

Ms Campbell said: "At this point, post pandemic, more than everything there must be evidence of reflection and work towards meaningful change and yet the absence of reflection, of lessons learned in the evidence from Northern Ireland is stark."

She said she meant no discourtesy to the chair of the inquiry, Baroness Hallett, or her team when she concluded that there was "little to which this module can help us".

"The issues in the NI healthcare system are too large, pervasive and systemic and the time available and the scope of this module was necessarily limited," she said.