Jamie Whitehead
Live reporter

Day eight - and week two - of the public hearings of the inquiry into how prepared the UK was for a pandemic has come to an end.

As you have seen in our health reporter Jim Reed's post below, it's been a busy day with two of the most recognisable faces of the pandemic - Sir Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance - giving their evidence.

Lady Hallett has announced that hearings will resume on Monday morning.

Next Tuesday we'll hear evidence from Matt Hancock - who was health secretary for England during the height of the pandemic.

Today's coverage was bought to you by Laura Foster, Jim Reed, Nick Triggle, Ece Goksedef, James Gregory and myself.

Thank you for joining us.

Jim Reed
Health reporter

Two of the best-known figures of the pandemic, Sir Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance, have been giving evidence about pandemic planning to this part of the Covid inquiry.

Whitty described abuse and threats aimed at scientists during Covid as "extremely concerning" and said that behaviour could damage our ability to deal with future pandemics.

He said it was "very difficult" for scientists to start planning for a full lockdown before 2020 without being told to by a senior politician, because it was such a "radical thing to do".

After lunch, Vallance said he regretted that the scientific advice used by ministers regarding Covid took "far longer" than it should have done to be made public.

Both men will almost certainly be called back in the autumn to be quizzed about decisions made from February 2020 onwards.

As we reported from his evidence earlier, Sir Patrick Vallance says awareness of inequality should be "embedded from day one" when responding to future pandemics.

Day eight of the inquiry's public hearing has now ended.

Inquiry chair Baroness Heather Hallett has thanked everyone, including the last person who gave evidence, Dr McMenamin, and told everyone that she will be back at 10:30am on Monday morning.

Laura Foster
Health correspondent, reporting from the inquiry

We’re now hearing about exercise ‘Silver Swan’.

This was Scotland’s rehearsal for a flu pandemic back in 2015 – looking at both local and national arrangements over a long period of time.

A key thing to come out of this exercise concerned PPE.

Dr Jim McMenamin says “there are issues of interpreting what the safe use of personal protective equipment should be within the NHS.

“That becomes really important for us to make sure that we can have all of that sharing with the infection prevention and control teams in any of our hospital or secondary care settings, and across the whole NHS estate”, he adds.

Laura Foster
Health correspondent, reporting from the inquiry

Lots of questions about Public Health Scotland and how it operates for Dr McMenamin.

As the name suggests, its role is to increase life expectancy and reduce health inequalities in Scotland, as well as to give support when there are big health challenges (such as a pandemic).

It was created on 1st April 2020 and brought together existing organisations in the Scottish health system such as Health Protection Scotland and NHS Health Scotland.

But McMenamin admis it was “unfortunate” timing considering the pandemic started weeks before that.

In his written statement, Dr McMenamin said that “PHS’s opening budget and staffing levels were not sufficient for the organization to be able to deliver health protection in a response that was required”.

As has happened a few times this week, the fire alarm went off again today during the inquiry.

It also went off as Dr Jim McMenamin sat down to give his evidence.

Laura Foster
Health correspondent, reporting from the inquiry

Dr Jim McMenamin is the last witness of the week, but the first witness to be called in relation to the health system in Scotland.

He was the Interim Clinical Director and strategic lead for the Respiratory Viral team within Health Protection Scotland and is now head of infections service at Public Health Scotland.

As health is a devolved issue, individual nations get to decide how they run their own public health systems as well as the NHS.

With that in mind, Kate Blackwell KC is starting her questioning by getting Dr McMenamin to explain the history and structure of Scotland’s public health body.

This will be particularly useful because next week multiple Scottish politicians will be appearing at the inquiry next week – including the former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.

Jim Reed
Health reporter

Sir Patrick Vallance finished giving his evidence a short while ago, here is a quick summary of what he said:

• He said it took "far longer" than it should have done for research from the Sage group of independent scientific advisers to be made public during the pandemic
• It was a regret, he said, that the information was not always quickly available so it could be open to "scrutiny, comment and challenge"
• He accepted that moving officials around in government was a "very big problem" as it resulted in knowledge being quickly lost
• He said it was "possible, even likely" that the government's Vaccine Task Force would fail when it was set up in 2020, even though it was eventually seen as one of the successes of the pandemic
• He said that the ability to scale up the country's industrial base is important in a pandemic - giving the example of how Germany was able to quickly increase testing compared to the UK
• He said the "terrible truth is" that all pandemics feed off and drive inequality - consideration of that needs to be "built into" the thinking of scientists and politicians from the start of any future outbreak

Laura Foster
Health correspondent, reporting from the inquiry

The final witness of the week is Dr Jim McMenamin.

But first another fire alarm disrupts things for 15 seconds.

Baroness Hallett shrugs and sighs in disbelief at the alarm as there have been many instances of it going off this week.

Sir Patrick Vallance's evidence has come to an end and the hearing is having a quick break

When they come back, we will see Dr Jim McMenamin in the chair.

Laura Foster
Health correspondent, reporting from the inquiry

Vallance says the need for the taskforce now is “not the same as it was in 2020” but says there is ‘absolutely’ still a need to focus on vaccination when it comes to the UK’s resilience to future pandemics.

“Don’t dream that you can have a vaccine factory sitting there waiting for a pandemic. It’s going to be staffed by people who don’t know how to make vaccines.”

“You need everyday activities that you can scale quickly and I think this is a part of resilience that needs to be thought through very carefully.”

Jim Reed
Health reporter

Interesting insight there into the Vaccines Task Force, the unit created by Sir Patrick Vallance now regarded as one of the success stories of the pandemic.

He said that, when it was set up in 2020, he thought it was "possible, even likely" that the unit would fail.

"In the end it was a great success," he says.

"If it had failed, though, the National Audit Office would have probably written a report saying what an outrageous waste of money it was."

He's raising this because he says the government needs to be much more explicit with the public, and at times taxpayers' money may need to be spent on something which might not be used whatsoever.

Laura Foster
Health correspondent, reporting from the inquiry

We are back from the break only for a fire alarm to temporarily interrupt Sir Patrick Vallance as he explained his chief scientific adviser’s role in the national risk assessment.

Looks like it was just a test though as no one left their seats and the whole thing lasted less than 10 seconds.

The questioning continues.

Sir Patrick Vallance is continuing to give evidence.

Stay with us for updates.

Today's hearing is now on a 10 minutes break.

They will be back at 15:05 BST and Sir Patrick Vallance will continue to answer questions.

We will keep bringing you the latest from the inquiry when they come back.

Jim Reed
Health reporter, BBC News

Vallance says it was a "regret" that during the pandemic it often took a long period of time for research produced by the Sage group of scientific advisers to be published.

"I believe that scientific advice should be made public; that's beneficial for everybody," he says.

He says that research relied on by ministers should always be open to "scrutiny, comment and challenge".

Often, at the start of the pandemic, the minutes and research papers produced by Sage took "far longer" than they should have done to be made public, says Vallance.

He says there have already been changes made to system and - going forward - he sees no reason why faster publication cannot be the norm, except in areas of national security.

Laura Foster
Health correspondent, reporting from the inquiry

Sir Patrick Vallance, the UK’s former chief scientific adviser, has been sworn in and is being questioned by Kate Blackwell KC.

Vallance stepped down from the position a couple of months ago, but started the job in 2018.

So far he’s stated that people moving positions in government is a very big problem as it results in “knowledge being lost”.

He also stressed the importance of science being embedded in government when considering policies.

Laura Foster
Health correspondent, reporting from the inquiry

As she thanked Whitty for his evidence, Baroness Hallett said she was astonished and very sorry to hear about the abuse he and his colleagues received during the pandemic.

“It’s wrong for so many reasons, but I do know how distressing it can be.”

“I hope that people will think twice but of course they never do before committing themselves to distressing acts unnecessarily.”

“There are so many different ways to express different opinion. Why do we have to have personal abuse?”

Sir Chris nodded and thanked her for her words.

That's it from Chris Whitty for today.

Patrick Vallance has now been sworn in.

Stay with us for the latest updates.