Welsh Government vaccinated healthcare workers rather than vulnerable patients, UK Covid Inquiry told

Martin Shipton

The Welsh Government decided to prioritise vaccinating healthcare workers over saving the lives of vulnerable people, a campaigner has told the UK Covid-19 Inquiry.

Sam Smith-Higgins, of the group Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice, said her father was 73 when he was admitted into hospital in January 2021 for cancer-related reasons. He hadn’t been vaccinated.

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'Undoubted'

“My father, Phil Smith, was diagnosed just as lockdowns came in with prostate cancer, “ she said. “Two consultants wrote on his notes that he had prostate cancer, but he wasn’t told for six months, by which time the cancer had spread. He was admitted [to hospital] on January 5 for treatment, and I knew he would be in for up to two weeks.

“When he was admitted, I asked there and then if he could have the vaccine, and I was told no. I asked if he could have HEPA filters. No, he couldn’t have any of that, so I kind of knew that he was going to catch Covid within the next two weeks. It was undoubted.”

Hugo Keith KC, counsel for the Inquiry, said: “It was rife, of course, at that stage.”

Mrs Smith-Higgins said: “It really was. The vaccinations started coming out on December 8 [2020], and I was the carer for my 85 year-old mother as well. So I expected her to be vaccinated relatively soon. But as December went through I was tweeting like mad everybody like mad = MPs, MSs, the head of NHS, saying ‘what is going on, why hasn’t my mother been vaccinated?’.

“It soon became apparent that actually in Wales they were focussing on the healthcare workers and not the most vulnerable. By January 11 2021, Cardiff and Vale Health Board tweeted that up to that date they had vaccinated 12,300 people, of which 69 were in care homes and only 75 were over 80. The rest were all healthcare workers.

“So I’m watching the TV, getting angry, because I’m seeing people on the TV being vaccinated - healthcare workers who don’t even live in my health board area - having vaccinations, just simply because they worked for that particular health board.”

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'Vulnerable'

Mr Keith said: “Your father, who was 73, wasn’t a care home resident and he wasn’t over 80, and therefore he wasn’t in the first two priority lists for vaccination. But he was vulnerable, because he was in a hospital where Covid was rife.”

Mrs Smith Higgins said: “And this is the point. He was under the Velindre cancer hospital, which is the cancer trust in Wales. They didn’t introduce vaccinating for their patients, sending out invitations until mid January. It was all too late. For those seven weeks from when vaccinations were introduced, the focus was on keeping healthcare workers working. It wasn’t about saving lives or saving people like my dad, who were going into what was and still is the most likely place you’ll catch Covid - which is a hospital in Wales.”

Mrs Smith-Higgins’ father died on January 26 2021. She confirmed to Mr Keith that following his death a letter arrived inviting him to attend for vaccination.

She said: “We knew he was going to catch Covid in there. It was hot, unventilated. It was rife in there.”

Mrs Smith-Higgins said one of the main concerns of her group was the pace of vaccine delivery in Wales. One question they wanted answered was whether or not there was a decision or a policy that allowed health and care workers to be vaccinated in advance of vulnerable or elderly people, and secondly whether or not the programme for vaccination in Wales delivered vaccination as speedily as was reasonably possible at that time.

She said: “Was there a policy for keeping people in work or keeping people alive, because vulnerable people weren’t being vaccinated. Fit and healthy healthcare workers were being vaccinated - so what was it, saving lives or keeping them in work.”

Furthermore, in January 2021 the Welsh Government sought to stagger the roll-out at one stage in order to ensure that the persons who helped the process of vaccination such as vaccinators weren't left with nothing to do. They were concerned about the prospect of delivering so many first doses that they ran out of vaccines to deliver.

Mrs Smith-Higgins expressed her serious concern, adding: “The fact that they apparently had only two places in Wales where they could store these vaccines is a huge concern. I don’t know what else to say about that, really - it just makes no sense, does it?”