The inquiry has run out of time, and has stopped taking evidence from Dr Goodall today.

We'll be back tomorrow where we will hear more from the permanent secretary, as well as First Minister Mark Drakeford and former health minister Vaughan Gething.

Hywel Griffith
BBC News' Wales Correspondent

For a small nation, it is clear Wales wasn’t short of bodies who had a duty to prepare for potential health emergencies ahead of the pandemic.

In the words of the inquiry counsel there was a “plethora” of them at local, regional and national level.

But Wales still wasn’t ready for something like the spread of Covid-19.

In his evidence, the former head of the Welsh NHS Dr Andrew Goodall accepted there was “duplication” and “too many arrangements in place”.

It was a problem flagged in a report as far back as 2012 with warnings over “confusion” and “fragmentation”, leaving Wales less resilient.

The picture emerging from the evidence so far is that officials in Wales were aware of these failings and the need to improve before the pandemic but progress was slow and their attention was focused elsewhere.

Dr Andrew Goodall told the Covid inquiry not all the recommendations drawn up from “task and finish” groups to look into pandemic flu were implemented.

The inquiry heard more than one task and finish groups that had been set up.

Keith asked: “Would you agree that despite those three instances of task and finish functions being identified not all the recommendations from any of those reviews or exercises were in the event implemented?"

“Not all of those were implemented,” Dr Goodall said.

“They took too long to make sure that the recommendations were implemented, even if there had been progress on some of those activities and matters and they weren't completed.

“They haven't been able to discharge the outcomes on all of those areas.”

“They were given the task but they didn't finish,” said Baroness Hallet.

“Yes they did not finish the task,” he replied.

The permanent secretary to the Welsh government, Dr Andrew Goodall, is now giving evidence.

Dr Goodall says at the start of devolution not everything about civil contingencies was controlled in Cardiff.

But in 2018 there was many of the functions were transferred to Wales.

Explaining why that happened, Dr Goodall said that because of the responsibilities it already had the Welsh government ministers needed to ensure its powers were “clearer”.

At the start of the pandemic Sir Frank’s office was “drowning in a sea of information,” he said.

In his final piece of evidence, Wales' chief medical officer admitted to Baroness Hallet they were under-resourced.

He said things moved "very, very quickly" and "we couldn't even manage emails".

“That led to a process over a period of time… to try to get some additional resource.”

Baroness Hallet, who is leading the inquiry, asked: “Basically, in getting the additional resource was an acknowledgement that you were under-resourced in first place?”

“I would agree with that,” he added.

Meanwhile, Hugo Keith added the health and social service risk register, which he earlier said had not been disclosed to the inquiry, has been provided but did not come out of the disclosure process in time for him to be aware of it.

Next up it's the former chief executive of the Welsh NHS, Dr Andrew Goodall.

Kirsten Heaven, representing the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru group, was able to ask Sir Frank a few questions.

She asked if he was recommendation of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG) for face masks to be available in hospitals, communities, ambulance and social care staff services.

Sir Frank said he did not “recall seeing that recommendation”.

“I would have expected the system in Wales would have picked that up”, he said.

He said he could not recall whether Wales had observer status on the body.

The inquiry earlier heard about an email exchange raising concerns about progress on reviewing pandemic guidance, and how that was being resourced, in the Welsh government from July 2018.

An email from a civil servant said they would have expected the Welsh NHS to be "more co-operative" than it was on a review of pandemic guidance.

Sir Frank told the email discussed advice that would go to the then-health minister, Vaughan Gething.

Wales was “not adequately prepared” to deal with high-consequence infectious disease, according to Public Health Wales emails seen by the inquiry.

The emails, from 2019, refer to the two people from west Wales who were low-risk contacts of an Mpox (formerly known as monkeypox) case.

The email from an official goes on to say “there is some urgent work to be done to provide the necessary assurances that NHS Wales could effectively respond to a case or cases of high-consequence infectious disease anywhere in the country".

Sir Frank said any high-consequence infectious disease patients would be transferred to London or Newcastle and Wales did not have the highly specialised contained facilities required.

He said he had tried to strengthen those arrangements.

Hywel Griffith
BBC News' Wales Correspondent

To answer the question of whether Wales was prepared for a pandemic, the inquiry needs first to get to grips with who exactly was in charge.

As the flurry of colourful organograms and complex acronyms in the evidence shows, this isn’t necessarily an easy question to answer.

Clearly, where there was complexity and confusion, opportunities could have been missed and blind spots could emerge.

Close scrutiny of the planning documents show that thinking of what risks Wales could face didn’t really develop after 2011.

Some documents weren’t regularly updated, participation in official exercises was limited.

This doesn’t mean that there wasn’t concern among officials, or that there weren’t discussions over vulnerability.

But what seems to be emerging from the evidence is that progress in preparing Wales for a pandemic stalled in the decade ahead of Covid arriving in 2020.

Progress on planning for pandemic flu in Wales was held up by work to prepare for a no deal Brexit, the chief medical officer told the inquiry.

Sir Frank Atherton said Operation Yellowhammer - the codeword for civil contingencies in case the UK left the EU without a deal - saw resources moved to other issues.

"The work had all stalled," he said.

Sir Frank Atherton insisted a Welsh group set up to prepare for pandemic flu was not “just waiting” for the UK government to act.

He told the inquiry the Wales Pandemic Flu Preparedness group was shadowing a UK group.

Keith asked him what the point of the shadow group meeting was "if it was only ever going to do something once the United Kingdom had acted first".

But Sir Frank said: “It wasn't just waiting, it was actually looking to how we in Wales could support development of pandemic preparedness.”

The chief medical officer says measures to deal with a pandemic that was not flu were "somewhat prematurely dismissed".

Later, he added: “With the benefit of hindsight we could and should have paid more attention to the 'what if' questions – 'what if the virus was so different?'

“At the time, I think it’s fair to say that those measures had been considered and somewhat prematurely dismissed.”

Earlier, asked about a previous framework from October 2014 for dealing with major infectious disease emergencies, Sir Frank was asked if there was no Welsh government debate on how to deal with a "high-consequence" pandemic that wasn't influenza.

“No, you’re correct,” he said.

“They were considered of course, but discounted for various reasons - with the benefit of hindsight discounted without sufficient consideration.”

Sir Frank Atherton denied there was “insufficient focus or attention” on preparedness for a pandemic.

Asked by the lead counsel to the inquiry whether that was his experience, Sir Frank said “on an official level there was quite a lot of work going on around preparedness".

"You can say ‘could more have been done?’ – that may be a valid question.

"But certainly at an official level quite significant work was going on around preparedness.”

Sir Frank Atherton is asked about a document called a “corporate risk register” from January 2016, six months before he became chief medical officer.

Hugo Keith said the document said the Welsh government needed to prepare for the “full range of national hazards and threats that it faces”, but told the hearing “there appears to be very little detail concerning the risk of pandemic influenza”.

Sir Frank said he would have had more input into a different document, the “health and social service risk register”, which would have fed into it. He says he was not working in the post when the document was produced.

But he said he would expect there to be more detail in the health and social service version.

”Certainly within the health and social service group, pandemic influenza was a was recognised as a material risk.”

Hugo Keith goes on to say that the inquiry has sought the document Sir Frank referred to, but is yet to be provided it.

The group of scientists advising ministers on the pandemic - Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) - was a UK-wide arrangement.

Eventually in Wales a group was set up called the Technical Advisory Cell.

Hugo Keith asked if it become apparent when the pandemic struck that there was a need for tailored scientific advice for the Welsh government.

Sir Frank says the Technical Advisory Cell was set up to advise ministers so they could have a scientific forum where they could ask their own questions.

He said they needed “specific detailed modelling” for Wales.

Much of the early part of the hearing has been about who is answers to whom in Wales, with the display of an extremely complex chart.

Hugo Keith described the pandemic preparedness and response structures in Wales as a “remarkably complex labyrinthine system".

Sir Frank says he always gives his advice "freely and impartially”.

He tells the inquiry that ministers and the Welsh government “always listened very carefully to what I’ve had to say” but has not always followed his advice “diligently”.

Asked about staff, he said going in to the pandemic - and during it - he had "some support" around but it was "quite a small resource".

Now, he said, that "really is quite different" now. Rather than an administrative support, he has an "office of the chief medical officer" which provides him with "quite considerable support".

Sir Frank Atherton has begun giving evidence to the inquiry.

He is asked to confirm his witness statement by the inquiry's counsel, Hugo Keith.

Keith asks Sir Frank about his position within the Welsh government.

He says his role is to provide advice to ministers, work with medical directors to “deliver high quality health services” and to be an “advocate on behalf of the health of the population”.

The two officials appearing at the inquiry today might be familiar to some – they frequently appeared at Welsh government press conferences at the height of the pandemic.

Sir Frank Atherton, who has just started giving evidence, is the chief medical officer for Wales – making him Welsh equivalent of Prof Sir Chris Whitty, who performs the same role in England.

Sir Frank is the chief adviser to the Welsh government on health issues, and has been in the job since 2016.

Dr Andrew Goodall was chief executive of the Welsh NHS when the pandemic broke out. He has since been promoted and is now the permanent secretary to the Welsh government – basically the most senior civil servant in the country.

The chief exec job is the most senior staff position in the health service, providing advice to the health minister and strategic leadership for the organisation.

It’s been a huge controversy in Wales that there isn’t a homespun version of this inquiry.

Campaigners and opposition politicians say that would be the only way decisions taken in Wales can be properly scrutinised.

Despite the existence of a Scottish inquiry, the Welsh government refused to commission one of its own.

First Minister Mark Drakeford argued that because Welsh decisions were often intertwined with what Westminster politicians did, they had to be understood in a UK-wide context.

Months of argument did lead to the establishment of a committee in the Senedd/Welsh Parliament, though, which will assess whether there should be separate Welsh Parliament probes into anything the inquiry overlooks.

Because health in Wales is controlled in Cardiff, the Labour-run Welsh government had an enormous role in how Wales dealt with Covid-19.

It operated the hospitals that responded and set the rules the public had to follow.

Ministers in Cardiff Bay were responsible for how the Welsh NHS prepared for a pandemic, the subject of what will be discussed today.

Initially much of what happened in Wales was the same as the other three nations.

But as the pandemic went on that changed, and Labour ministers became happier to take decisions separate from counterparts in the other UK nations.