'Hellish' scenes and body bag shortages: What we could learn from COVID report today

A new 400-page report into the preparedness of the UK's healthcare system for a global pandemic will be published today, examining if it helped or hindered the country's COVID response.

The harrowing testimony from 97 witnesses who gave evidence to the UK COVID-19 public inquiry, from September to November last year, was used to decide how the country coped and adapted to an evolving public health emergency. The report will also examine the standard of patient care for COVID and non-COVID patients.

A number of health leaders broke down as they gave powerful testimony to the pandemic probe. They included a senior medic who was in tears as he described scenes "from hell" on intensive care wards, with staff running out of body bags and sick patients "raining from the sky".

Professor Kevin Fong, former national clinical adviser in emergency preparedness, resilience and response at NHS England, told the probe that the scale of death in intensive care units was "truly astounding.