UK Covid inquiry: Wolverhampton survivor who was in intensive care for 10 days believes no country could have prepared for pandemic

Darren Buttrick was fighting for his life for ten days in ICU at New Cross Hospital but after being put on a ventilator got out alive.

As the inquiry about the Government's response to the pandemic gets underway Darren believes no country got it right.

He said: "The nurses said I gave them hope because I was the first to get out of intensive care alive I gave them hope.

"But when you look at it, no country in the whole world reacted well to what happened, it was such a huge event."

The 51-year-old added: "I now think countries should plan for these kinds of eventualities because it has happened before."

Darren, from Coven, counts his blessings to be still alive but he lost his father-in-law to Covid.

He added: "My wife lost her father during the pandemic so I feel very lucky to be alive. I don't know what the inquiry will find.

"However, I do think the NHS needs to be congratulated and all the scientists for the vaccination programme.

"That was found so quickly and rolled out to so many people it really really saved so many lives."

As an independent public inquiry set up to examine the UK’s response to and impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, and learn lessons for the future, gets under way, Darren still thinks the NHS has not properly recovered.

He said: "I do not believe the NHS is back to where it was yet, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer which I believe would have been caught earlier if the NHS was back to its best but the waiting lists are so long."

And Darren, who is back at work as a sales director, believes the consequences of the parties at Downing Street have had an impact on public opinion.

He said: "When you see all the parties, and the pictures with bottles of wine everywhere it really does bring back memories of us not being able to see loved ones at that time.

"It just feels a bit rich everyone was telling us what to do but not doing it themselves, it will be interesting to see what the inquiry says about that."

The pandemic's affect on businesses has also left bitter memories for some, especially those in the travel industry.

Businesses were also hard hit, perhaps none more so than the travel industry.

Maggie Rogers, of the Travelwallet in Bridgnorth, said: "The way the Government treated the travel industry was farcical, with ridiculous traffic light systems when they reopened which caused uncertainty and huge amounts of work.”

Ms Rogers, who has been in the travel business for 47 years, celebrated her company’s 21st anniversary in February.

“The minister at the time, Grant Shapps, was supposed to be overseeing the whole thing but he did not understand the industry,” she said.

“Shapps was farcical, clueless. They had the traffic light system and during Boris Johnson’s trade trip to India they allowed people to come from there into this country for 10 days while not allowing travel from Majorca.

“The trade deal did not happen,” she added. “The support we received was so poor – they stopped people from travelling at all at the start of it but said we could open.”