, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary, will today
(Tuesday 9 March) highlight how a decade of Conservative failure
“weakened our defences” and meant the country went into the
coronavirus pandemic woefully unprepared.
In a speech at the Institute for Public Policy Research, the
Shadow Health Secretary will warn the UK cannot be complacent
about the future, highlighting how under-resourcing,
underfunding, and a failure to invest in public health programmes
worsened the NHS’s ability to combat Covid.
The UK went into the Covid crisis with 17,000 fewer NHS beds than
in 2010, spending on health substantially lower than the
historical average and with a health workforce smaller compared
to other advanced economies.
Ashworth will warn the country cannot afford to make the same
mistakes in future and say we must build health resilience and
tackle health inequalities. This should include introducing new
statutory duties to plan, audit and invest in pandemic response,
alongside obligatory training for ministers in ‘germ-gaming’ – in
the same way that the military prepares for conflict scenarios.
The Shadow Health Secretary will outline five steps to strengthen
the country’s pandemic resilience:
1. Pandemic planning through regular ‘germ games’ to prepare for
future outbreaks. The Heath Secretary should report annually to
Parliament on pandemic preparedness and response.
2. Subjecting Government pandemic preparedness plans to
independent audit with a new OBR-style body looking at the UK’s
health resilience.
3. Improved population health with fully funded public health
services and a government-wide ‘health in all policies’ approach
to tackle and narrow growing health inequalities. Public health
teams should be resourced to deliver local community contact
tracing and lead on local containment plans.
4. The Government, working in partnership with research
institutions and the life sciences industry, should prioritise
investment in science R&D to develop the vaccines and
therapeutics for the future.
5. The Government must show international leadership on global
surveillance to help identify new emerging infectious diseases
and tackle the drivers of future pandemics such as biodiversity
loss and climate change.
will say:
“Being on the back foot has cost lives. Labour would get on the
front foot against future threats. Future resilience against
pandemics isn’t a choice. It’s a necessity.
“This pandemic has been devastating. Our NHS staff are exhausted,
families are fatigued, over 120,000 have died and we’re suffering
a deep economic hit.
“Our vaccination programme is the light at the end of the tunnel,
but with experts warning we are in an ‘era of pandemics’, this is
no time for complacency. Viruses more deadly or contagious than
Covid-19, or resistant to antibodies, could emerge. Pandemic
threats are real and must be reduced.
“Boris Johnson’s government ignored the warnings and weakened our
defences. They left our country vulnerable and exposed when this
pandemic hit. Given we know the scale of the risks, it would be
unforgivable to be on the back foot again.
“A Labour government would lead from the front on pandemic
preparedness, prioritising our health security and forming
alliances to make the world a safer place for the future.
“Governments rightly invest in defence planning. Practising for
pandemics should be no different.
“Just as military leaders train their forces by ‘war games’,
Ministers should regularly ‘germ-game’ to prepare themselves and
the country for the next pandemic. And government plans should be
independently assessed and reported to Parliament.”
Ends
Notes to editors:
will deliver his keynote speech at an online event
hosted by the IPPR think tank on Tuesday 9 March from 10am. Those
who register will be sent a Zoom webinar link ahead of the event:
https://www.ippr.org/event/keynote-webinar-jonathan-ashworth-mp-healthcare-resilience
The speech will draw on academic evidence that warns:
- The Covid pandemic is estimated to have cost the world $28
trillion.
- The majority of emerging diseases and almost all known
pandemics are zoonoses (caused by microbes of animal origin that
‘spill over’ jumping from animal to humans).
- The risk of pandemics is increasing rapidly with more than
five new diseases emerging in people every year, any one of which
has the potential to spread.
- The recent Intergovernmental Council on Pandemic Prevention
estimated there are over 800,000 viruses that could infect
humans.
- Environmental degradation disrupts natural habitats and
increases contacts among wildlife, their pathogens and people
which has led to almost all pandemics.
- Climate change will cause future pandemic risk, with rising
temperatures, changes in rainfall leading to mosquito migration
that could expose one billion new people to diseases including
dengue fever, yellow fever and zika by the end of the century.
