‘Catastrophic failure’: UK Covid families welcome inquiry findings on PPE

Naomi Fulop at the Covid memorial wall in London in 2024. Photograph: Andy Hall/The Observer View image in fullscreen Naomi Fulop at the Covid memorial wall in London in 2024. Photograph: Andy Hall/The Observer ‘Catastrophic failure’: UK Covid families welcome inquiry findings on PPE Campaigners feel vindicated by some of report’s conclusions but are unconvinced by its verdict on ‘VIP lane’ Johnson government wasted £10bn on PPE, Covid inquiry finds I n the slightly incongruous setting of south London’s splendid Kia Oval cricket stadium, Naomi Fulop gathered her strength to give the assembled British media her response to the damning findings of Heather Hallett’s latest Covid inquiry report. Reading a statement from her mobile phone, her voice quivering just a little, as fellow members of the Covid Bereaved Families for Justice (CBFFJ) group stood alongside her, Fulop recalled the terrible time when her mother died from coronavirus in January 2021. It was in the second lethal wave of the pandemic, a vaccine still a far-off aspiration, during the third national lockdown. Like so many other people, Fulop believes her mother died because those caring for her did not have adequate personal protective equipment (PPE), a belief supported by the findings of Lady Hallett, a former court of appeal judge. “Today’s report lays bare a catastrophic failure of preparedness that cost lives, wasted billions and allowed a privileged few to profit from a national emergency,” Fulop said. “The human cost was felt in homes across the country, including my own. My mum, Christina Fulop, was housebound and cared for by wonderful domiciliary care workers. During the second wave, they were expected to wear one thin medical mask for an entire eight-hour shift, moving from one frail person to another. We believe that is how she contracted Covid. She later died in hospital. The same avoidable tragedy was repeated in hospitals, care settings and homes across the country.” Deborah Dunlop, another member of the group, told the Guardian that her mother, Sylvia Griffiths, died in April 2020, in the first wave, in a Sunderland care home where staff also had inadequate PPE. “They were a medium-sized care home, and there were a lot of residents who passed away,” Dunlop said. “The nurse who looked after my mum, who was a wonderful Nigerian man, a very stoic gentleman, was with her when she passed away. He was absolutely bereft because he couldn’t believe the number of residents who were dying.” The public inquiry into Britain’s Covid disaster is itself a triumph and vindication for the families group. Individuals whose loved ones died in that time of terror and isolation came together steadily from first founding in May 2020 to become a formidable campaigning group of 7,000 seeking answers and justice. Soon enlisting support from a team of lawyers led by the solicitor Elkan Abrahamson and the barrister Pete Weatherby KC, veterans of justice causes including representing bereaved Hill