People's COVID Inquiry
Impact on frontline staff and key workers
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Episode notes
The People's COVID Inquiry asks: Were the roles of key workers and the risks they faced understood? Were they supported and protected? Were employment conditions, in-work poverty and health and safety at work given adequate consideration by the Government?
It became very clear at the outset of the pandemic that the UK Government needed to radically reappraise the roles of key workers in society. We will hear the evidence of frontline staff working in the NHS, in care services, transport and education. Evidence will also be drawn from the work of bodies including Independent SAGE and assorted trade unions and professional associations across these sectors.
WITNESSES:
Prof. Raymond Agius | Professor Emeritus of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, University of Manchester
Unjum Mirza | ASLEF, BAME Rep, Victoria Line Branch
Kirsty Brewerton | NHS Clinical Sister and founder Sitting Rooms of Culture
Dr Chidi Ejimofo | NHS consultant in Emergency Medicine
[Prof. Dame Donna Kinnair, RCN General Secretary and CEO has had to withdraw]
THE PANEL:
- Michael Mansfield QC (chair)
- Professor Neena Modi
- Dr Tolullah Oni
- Dr Jacky Davis
- Lorna Hackett (Counsel to the Inquiry)
‘We’ve got a fantastic NHS, we will give them all the support that they need, we will make sure that they have all preparations, all the kit that they need for us to get through it’
Prime Minister Boris Johnson, 10 March 2020
‘What I can tell you is that we truly did everything we could, and continue to do everything that we can,
to minimise loss of life and to minimise suffering in what has been a very, very difficult stage,
and a very, very difficult crisis for our country, and we will continue to do that'
Prime Minister Boris Johnson, 26 January 2021
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