Thousands of people are 'exposed to danger' because healthcare provision at major events is 'unregulated', the Manchester Arena Inquiry heard today.
The government is being by the Care Quality Ciommission to regulate healthcare at big events like concerts and music festivals to prevent 'unsafe care, abuse and deaths'.
Yesterday Joyce Frederick, CQC director of policy and strategy, revealed at the inquiry it had been lobbying the Department of Health and Social Care to bring the 'unregulated' sector under its sphere, to enable it to take action against poor providers. It was the CQC's 'number one priority'.
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Today Emma Reed, Department of Health and Social Care Director for the Emergency Preparedness and Health Protection Directorate, was grilled at the inquiry about why the department appeared to have blocked the move.
Counsel to the inquiry Paul Greaney KC put it to the witness that healthcare at events is currently 'unregulated' by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) which yesterday told the inquiry the sector had been responsible for 'unsafe care, abuse and deaths'.
Pressed by Mr Greaney, Ms Reed conceded the sector was indeed unregulated and that this would be reviewed. She said the department recognised that 'not adequate standards were in place'.
Pressed by inquiry chairman Sir John Saunders whether it needed to be regulated, Ms Reed said she recognised the 'need for clear standards across the sector' but went on that 'further work' was required to establish if regulation was appropriate.
Sir John said he believed it 'ought to have been done already' and it was a 'long time in coming'.
Ms Reed pointed out work with CQC had to be paused because of the pandemic but was being resumed. A 'post implementation report' was 'imminent' after which the department could make a decision, she said.
Ms Reed agreed with Mr Greaney that the healthcare at events sector was unregulated and also that this gave rise to a 'risk of injury and death'. It 'cried out' for regulation, said the KC.
The witness said that work still had to be done to decide 'which is the right mechanism' to regulate the sector. "It's not only important to establish if regulation is required but how to achieve this," said Ms Reed, who went on it was important to establish if regulation was 'the right route'.
Pressing the witness further, Mr Greaney said: "If there's a state of affairs where thousands of people are going to venues for events and they are at risk of injury and death as a result of a lack of regulation, there needs to be some sort of regulation."
Ms Reed said: "That's absolutely going to be the question we are going to answer."
The response prompted exasperation from families inside the inquiry room.
Pressed further, Ms Reed said: "We need to consider exactly what it is we are going to consider."
Mr Greaney pressed the witness further, saying thousands were being 'exposed to danger' because the sector was not regulated.
Ms Reed said she 'absolutely recognised the urgency of the work' of the inquiry and that it was taken 'very seriously' by her department, and that ministers were 'fully cognisant' of the issue.
But she went on that there was a need to 'follow due process' and the department would act 'as promptly and as positively as we can'.
Mr Greaney told the witness all that would be required to allow the CQC to regulate the sector would be to delete a 35 word exemption to the relevant act.
The witness said even though it was a small change to the act it still required 'due process' through parliament.
Pressed further by Sir John who said relevant work had been ongoing through the 'protect duty' for some time, Ms Reed said she 'absolutely recognised' the work of the chairman in his reports and that she 'welcomed' his recommendations.
She accepted the department's work had not been as fast as 'everybody would have liked'.
The damning second report of inquiry chairman Sir John Saunders heaped criticism on Arena operator SMG and its contracted medical services provider at the time, Emergency Training UK (ETUK). He said their relationship didn't operate as it should have, adding: "In relation to healthcare, inadequate consideration was given to the welfare of the event-goers."
Ten years before the 2017 blast, which killed 22 people after an Ariana Grande concert, Arena operators SMG contracted out medical and first aid services on concert nights to ETUK. It has now been replaced by another provider, Medicare.
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