A MACHYNLLETH campaigner is meeting with the chair of the UK-wide public Covid-19 inquiry, as the fight for a Wales-only inquiry continues.

Campaigner, Catherine Griffiths, met with Lady Hallett alongside nine other members of the Covid Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru group this week.

In December, it was announced that Lady Hallett, a former senior appeal court judge, had been appointed to chair the public UK inquiry into the Covid-19 pandemic.

Catherine said: “Lady Hallett will be going to 11 different locations around the UK to speak to people, and she said she wants to put bereaved families at the heart of the inquiry. The first place she’s going to is Cardiff, to meet us.”

Rather than providing evidence, the Tuesday meeting is about “feeding back on the terms of reference”, which were announced on Thursday, 10 March.

Each member of the group will be given five minutes to present their feedback to Lady Hallett.

“What I’m hoping she would say is that ‘this inquiry is far too big and I would like to delegate part of this to Wales’. We have seven health boards in Wales all doing different things with different protocols, practices, and procedures.

“Also, I keep banging on this drum, but health and social care is a devolved issue therefore it should be dealt with independently and individually based on the Welsh Government response and choices.

“Then we have all the care homes on top. I’ve spoken to people who oversee care homes and not one has been obliged to carry out an individual inquiry into their own home, how it got in, and how to prevent it next time.”

In November 2020, Catherine’s father sadly died in Hafan y Waun Care Home when over half of the residents became infected.

Catherine said the terms of reference were “too broad”, raising fears that “Wales would get lost”.

The terms of reference set out the aims of the inquiry, which hopes to examine the Covid-19 response and the impact of the pandemic in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and produce a factual narrative account.

This will include in relation to central, devolved, and local public health decision-making and its consequences, the response of the health and care sector across the UK, and the economic response to the pandemic and its impact, including government interventions.

The inquiry will identify the lessons to be learned, to inform preparations for future pandemics.

A Welsh Conservative spokesperson said: “It is just a shame that the Labour Government in Cardiff Bay continue to run scared of scrutiny as they block the Wales specific Covid inquiry favoured by the public.

“It is now essential that the inquiry – and national media coverage – ensure that the UK’s nations are equally represented and examined, not allowing it to be England-dominated as we fear.”

You can see the full terms of reference on the UK Government website.