Covid-19: Poor links between NHS and social care weakened England's response, says NAO

Pre-pandemic issues such as severe budget cuts to local government and poor integration between the NHS and social care weakened England’s ability to respond to covid-19, the public spending watchdog has said. The National Audit Office (NAO) assessed the government’s response to the pandemic and also found many issues with transparency around personal protective equipment (PPE) contracts, provision of PPE for the social care sector when compared with the health sector, and inconsistencies between what providers and frontline staff were reporting in terms of having protective equipment. Responding to the findings, the NHS Confederation’s chief executive, Danny Mortimer, said, “This report re-emphasises the long term issues that severely weakened the foundations of health and care, which meant the country was not better prepared to deal with the pandemic and its fallout . .