NHS 'came close to collapse' during pandemic, inquiry finds

The NHS "came close to collapse" during the pandemic, the chair of the UK COVID-19 Inquiry has said.

"We coped, but only just," Baroness Heather Hallett concluded in the inquiry's third report, released on Thursday. She said UK healthcare systems "teetered on the brink of total collapse".

Module 3, the third of the inquiry's 10 investigations, has examined the impact of COVID on healthcare systems across the four nations. COVID inquiry latest It investigated how governments and society responded to the pandemic, the capacity of healthcare systems to adapt and the impact on patients, their loved ones and healthcare workers.

The report, based on the testimony of 97 witnesses, found the UK entered the pandemic "ill-prepared.