Local directors of public health had to watch TV for Covid news, the public inquiry has been told.
Prof Jim McManus, from the Association of Directors of Public Health, said communication from central government was "less than optimal" during the pandemic.The government's plans for dealing with Covid were "unclear" with some local health officials only hearing about policy changes from TV news conferences, the Covid Inquiry has heard.
"For the first few months of the pandemic, there were parts of central government that did not have a mailing list to reach out to directors of public health so they physically couldn't contact us," he added. "Sometimes we had no response or communication and we found out at the same time as the rest of the population on the 5pm [Downing Street news conference] bulletin about new guidance," he said.
He said the pandemic was too often thought of as an NHS problem rather than a public health problem, giving the example of plans to move community health visitors into hospitals to treat Covid patients."If you'd removed every health visitor in England and deployed them to a Covid ward, there would have been significant safeguarding risks and children could have been harmed."
Dr Calderwood resigned in April 2020 after travelling to her holiday home in breach of Covid rules at the time.
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