2. Ms Amanda Provis

MS AMANDA PROVIS (affirmed).

Questions From Lead Counsel to the Inquiry for Module 2B

Lady Hallett: Please just say if you need a break or anything. Thank you very much for helping us.

Mr Poole: Ms Provis, I think you were in the room a moment ago when I said this, but I will say it again, if you could just try to keep your voice up so that we can hear you but also so that your evidence can be recorded. If I ask you anything that you don’t understand, please ask me to repeat it –

Ms Amanda Provis: Okay.

Lead 2B: – or rephrase it.

I understand that you give your evidence this morning on behalf of Covid Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru.

Ms Amanda Provis: Yeah.

Lead 2B: You have been good enough to provide a witness statement to the Inquiry that’s dated 23 February 2024.

Ms Amanda Provis: Yes.

Lead 2B: We have that up on the screen. You signed that witness statement. Is it true to the best of your knowledge and belief –

Ms Amanda Provis: Yes, it is.

Lead 2B: Ms Provis, it’s my sad task this morning to ask you some questions about your mother and also your grandmother, both of whom you lost to Covid.

Ms Amanda Provis: Yeah.

Lead 2B: May I start by passing on the Inquiry’s condolences for your loss.

Ms Amanda Provis: Thank you.

Lead 2B: So I may start with some questions about your mother, Christine.

Ms Amanda Provis: Yeah.

Lead 2B: Now, I understand that your mother was a retired homemaker and she tragically passed away from Covid on 7 April 2020 at the age of just 61.

Ms Amanda Provis: That’s correct.

Lead 2B: Now, I understand that your mother had some underlying health conditions: she suffered from diabetes and chronic asthma and COPD, and also in 2002, I think following that COPD diagnosis, she had most of one of her lungs removed?

Ms Amanda Provis: Yes.

Lead 2B: Now, your father is a hospital porter, and am I right that he worked as a hospital porter throughout the pandemic?

Ms Amanda Provis: Yeah, he did, yes.

Lead 2B: Do you know what PPE your father was provided with at work at the start of the pandemic?

Ms Amanda Provis: Yes: nothing at all.

Lead 2B: Did there come a time when your father started showing symptoms of Covid?

Ms Amanda Provis: Yes, that would have been the end of March. He’d gone to work, and about half an hour after he’d gone to work he rang me and said he was on his way home, he had symptoms of anosmia, which is no taste and no smell, had mentioned it to his line manager, and, along with a few other porters who had the same symptoms, were told to see the doctor in A&E, and the doctor told them to go home and self-isolate.

Lead 2B: So it was not only your father but a few other hospital porters were showing similar symptoms?

Ms Amanda Provis: Yes, that’s correct.

Lead 2B: What steps were taken to protect your mother from becoming infected when your father returned home to isolate?

Ms Amanda Provis: So obviously he told my mother, you know, the symptoms. They both said they were feeling okay. They slept in separate rooms so that my mother, because of her underlying health conditions, you know, wouldn’t catch it – anything from my father.

Lead 2B: Did there come a time, though, when your mother began to show symptoms of Covid?

Ms Amanda Provis: Yes, she did. It would be, I’d say, about a day or so after my father had been sent home from work.

Lead 2B: So I think you say, yes, in your statement that your father took a PCR test on 2 April –

Ms Amanda Provis: That’s correct.

Lead 2B: – and that was around the same time that your mother started to show symptoms. So again, similar to your father, lack of taste and smell and a cough; is that right?

Ms Amanda Provis: Yes, that’s correct.

Lead 2B: Given your mother’s underlying health conditions, her showing those symptoms must have been extremely worrying. What did your mother and father do upon your mother showing those symptoms?

Ms Amanda Provis: So they rang the doctors, because obviously you couldn’t go and see the doctor face-to-face, they spoke to the doctor and the doctor said, from the symptoms that she has, sounds like that she has Covid, and she was jut advised to use her rescue pack, which she had for COPD, which contained antibiotics and her asthma pump and steroids, to use those as and when she needed them, which is what she started straightaway.

Lead 2B: Given her underlying health conditions, was your mother at any stage advised to go to hospital?

Ms Amanda Provis: No.

Lead 2B: Now, I understand that on 6 April your father, having taken a PCR test, that came back, and that was a positive –

Ms Amanda Provis: That’s correct.

Lead 2B: Was it your belief that your father had contracted Covid then whilst working as a hospital porter?

Ms Amanda Provis: That’s correct.

Lead 2B: And that he had passed that on to your mother, upon his return home?

Ms Amanda Provis: That’s correct. He spoke to the doctor after my mother had passed and the doctor said, you know, it could have come from him or – they had gone shopping about a week before the lockdown and it could have come from there, but it is likely it was brought home by my father.

Lead 2B: Okay. I think you say in your witness statement that you had a FaceTime call with your parents on the day of your father’s positive test, so that’s 6 April?

Ms Amanda Provis: That’s correct.

Lead 2B: And on that FaceTime call I think you observed that your mother’s symptoms had worsened?

Ms Amanda Provis: Yeah, she’d got up in the morning and she was feeling quite breathless, she said it felt like that she’d been for a run. And she’s always had asthma. When she used to have asthma attacks, she used to start to getting sort of like panicky and feel that way anyway. So my father said, “Look, you know, you’re going to be fine, you’re all right, just try and take your time, sort of breathe slowly” and, you know, sort of, “You’ll get through this”. She used – she had a nebuliser at home which she used. My dad did say to her “Look, do you want to go to the hospital?” And she said “No, I’m too afraid to go to the hospital, you know, if I haven’t got it and it’s just a really, really bad flu, then I’m going to end up with it, I don’t want to be on my own”, she said. So she was too afraid to go to the hospital, but she wasn’t advised to go.

Lead 2B: I think it was the following day, so 7 April, that you received a telephone call from your father telling you that your mother had tragically passed away; is that right?

Ms Amanda Provis: That’s correct.

Lady Hallett: So the next day?

Ms Amanda Provis: Yeah. The 7th.

Lady Hallett: Sorry, Mr Poole.

Ms Amanda Provis: Sorry.

Mr Poole: You describe in your statement that you suffer with asthma and, because of that, your father was concerned, he didn’t want to put you at risk.

Ms Amanda Provis: That’s correct.

Lead 2B: So it was left to your father and brother to wait for the paramedics?

Ms Amanda Provis: Yeah, my father – sorry, my brother also works at the same hospital as my father, he was in work the day that my mother passed away. My father obviously had spoken to myself, he’d got hold of my brother, and as my brother was in work – he was on a different ward, he’s a nursing assistant – so he grabbed what PPE was available to him and he left work and went straight up to my father’s then to be with my dad.

Lead 2B: It must have been incredibly difficult for you not being able to see –

Ms Amanda Provis: Yeah, broke my heart.

Lead 2B: Your mother’s funeral I think took place on 30 April?

Ms Amanda Provis: That’s correct.

Lead 2B: Were you able to see your mother before laying her to rest?

Ms Amanda Provis: No, no, not at all. We weren’t given that option whatsoever.

Lead 2B: Was your mother’s funeral subject to the restrictions of which we are now only too familiar?

Ms Amanda Provis: Yes, there was only ten people allowed and that was including the vicar.

Lead 2B: Ms Provis, I know this must be very difficult for you, but if I could ask you to just slow down slightly in your answers, just so that we can record all of your evidence, I’m grateful.

Were you able to visit your mother there in the weeks thereafter?

Ms Amanda Provis: No.

Lead 2B: Tragically you also lost your grandmother, Maureen, to Covid on 29 January 2021.

Ms Amanda Provis: That’s correct.

Lead 2B: She was 84, I believe, when she passed?

Ms Amanda Provis: Yes.

Lead 2B: Now, although your grandmother suffered from diabetes, arthritis and pancreatitis, she lived an independent life until early 2020 –

Ms Amanda Provis: That’s –

Lead 2B: – when I think, at that time, she wanted to move out of her flat and into a nursing home?

Ms Amanda Provis: That’s right.

Lead 2B: Now, I think I’m right in saying that as a family you had concerns about this –

Ms Amanda Provis: Yes.

Lead 2B: – due to what you had heard on the news about Covid?

Ms Amanda Provis: That’s correct.

Lead 2B: So, to put it bluntly, your concerns were you didn’t want her to move into a nursing home –

Ms Amanda Provis: No, we didn’t.

Lead 2B: – because that would put her at risk of infection?

Ms Amanda Provis: Yes.

Lead 2B: So your grandmother therefore continued living in her flat. Did there, though, come a time when she needed to be admitted to hospital?

Ms Amanda Provis: Yes, she did. So after my mother passed, and it was after the funeral, so it would have been early May, my grandmother had a fall in her flat; she bashed her head, broke her hip and broke her wrist. She already had a lifeline installed in the flat anyway, which she used then obviously, then which contacted the ambulance, my father and his brother. And then my father rung me then to help me to – with my grandmother, to help her get dressed, you know, to maintain her dignity.

Lead 2B: When your grandmother was admitted to hospital, were you aware of any steps being taken to protect her from Covid, to make sure that she remained infection-free?

Ms Amanda Provis: None that I know of.

Lead 2B: Were you aware of whether your grandmother was tested for Covid on admission?

Ms Amanda Provis: Not on admission, no, but before she left she was.

Lead 2B: Were you able to visit your grandmother while she was in hospital?

Ms Amanda Provis: Not initially. She was originally in one hospital and then she was transferred to another one before coming out, and being admitted to a nursing home, so I couldn’t visit in the first hospital because of the restrictions, but I was allowed in the second hospital to visit her.

Lead 2B: I think, as you just alluded to then, there came a time when your grandmother was discharged from hospital to a care home?

Ms Amanda Provis: That’s correct.

Lead 2B: Again, when that happened, were you aware whether your grandmother was tested for Covid prior to discharge or prior to being admitted to a care home?

Ms Amanda Provis: Yes, she was, she was – before discharge and being admitted to the care home, she was tested for Covid and it obviously was negative.

Lead 2B: Were you able to visit your grandmother at the care home?

Ms Amanda Provis: No, no. Every time we made arrangements to go, which – they said we could visit her outside – there was always bad weather, being in Wales it’s quite normal, so, no, we weren’t able to. The only time I did, I could go and stand by – well, not by the window, because we had to be back from the window where she was in the main lounge with other residents, we weren’t allowed close up to the window to talk to her. So she really found it difficult to hear what I was saying to her. She said “Oh, can you come closer?” And they were, like, “No, you’re not allowed, you’ve got to stay back from the window”. So practically I had to shout into the lounge and it was really difficult, she couldn’t hear tidy.

Lead 2B: Sorry to ask you again to just make sure you slow down your answers. I know it’s incredibly difficult, but your evidence is very important, so it’s very important that we are able to record it.

So you’ve described how you visited your grandmother at the care home. Within the care home, were you aware of any steps that were taken to protect her from Covid, make sure that she remained infection-free?

Ms Amanda Provis: No.

Lead 2B: I think you described in your witness statement that around the middle of January 2021 a number of residents at your grandmother’s care home began to develop Covid symptoms, including your grandmother; is that right?

Ms Amanda Provis: Correct, yes.

Lead 2B: Were you aware at that stage what steps were taken within the care home to deal with what sounds like an outbreak of Covid?

Ms Amanda Provis: Yeah, they were all separated and isolated in their own individual rooms.

Lead 2B: I think it was on 29 January 2021 that you received the awful news that your grandmother had passed away in the early hours of the morning?

Ms Amanda Provis: That’s correct.

Lead 2B: Was anyone able to be with your grandmother in her very last moments?

Ms Amanda Provis: My uncle, which is my father’s brother, he was able to be with her when they knew that she was definitely was going to pass, but they wouldn’t allow my father, not even five minutes, to say his goodbyes. You know, they could have tested him and put some PPE on him and sent him to the room even for five minutes to say goodbye, but they wouldn’t let him.

Lead 2B: Are you aware whether your grandmother received any treatment between showing signs of having Covid and then sadly passing on 29 January?

Ms Amanda Provis: I know a doctor went there and that all they were advised was paracetamol for any temperatures that they had, but nothing else.

Lead 2B: So there were no attempts made to transfer your grandmother or any other resident, to your knowledge, to a hospital?

Ms Amanda Provis: That’s correct, yeah, no, nothing.

Lead 2B: Although I think I’m right in saying that more people were permitted to attend your grandmother’s funeral, there were still restrictions. Can you describe the restrictions and how that impacted on you but also your family.

Ms Amanda Provis: Yeah, so at that time we were allowed to have bubbles of people. So, as my father was on his own, he was part of my household bubble, which included myself, my husband and my two children, but in her funeral everybody was separated, including my father, so he was sat on his own in his own mother’s funeral and not sat with us, even though he was part of our bubble.

Lead 2B: Was it a result of losing both your mother and grandmother to Covid in the ways that you have just told us that you became involved with Covid Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru?

Ms Amanda Provis: That’s correct.

Lead 2B: Now, as you will understand, this module concerns Welsh Government decision-making, and Covid Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru have raised a number of issues and matters with us, some of which you’ll have heard me explore with Ms Grant a moment ago.

Ms Amanda Provis: Yeah.

Lead 2B: Given your own tragic experiences, would I be right to think that you are particularly interested in infection control in care homes, particularly in the first wave of the virus?

Ms Amanda Provis: Yes.

Lead 2B: As well as infection control in care homes, there were also the restrictions that you’ve spoken about placed on care homes generally, in terms of trying to keep residents safe, but of course the terrible consequences that that had on loved ones and relatives of loved ones that wished to visit care homes; that is a concern of yours –

Ms Amanda Provis: It is.

Lead 2B: – but also members of your group; is that right?

Ms Amanda Provis: That’s correct.

Lead 2B: What about the receipt of medical care within care homes? Have some, perhaps a large number of members of your group, raised the issue of whether or not their loved ones received proper or adequate medical care when in care homes?

Ms Amanda Provis: Yes, that’s correct.

Lead 2B: Now, outside the care sector, have a lot of your members raised the issue of the 111 medical service, so the phone system for receiving medical help?

Ms Amanda Provis: Yes, that’s correct.

Lead 2B: Turning to hospitals and the general provision of medical care, what are your main concerns regarding hospitals?

Ms Amanda Provis: I’m concerned that there wasn’t adequate PPE for anybody that worked there, and that if there was adequate PPE that it wouldn’t have been brought home to my mother and, you know, she would have still – hopefully have still been with us.

Lead 2B: And also a related issue, the issue of restrictions in visiting and the ability to see loved ones in hospital, is that another issue that –

Ms Amanda Provis: Yes, it is, yes. We would have liked to know the opportunity to visit more than we were allowed, because, you know, I barely saw my grandmother, and even in the hospital and in the nursing home, you know, I didn’t have the chance to be – you know, speak to her, when she had all her faculties there. Because due to the diabetes and it not being controlled properly, because obviously she wasn’t eating and drinking because she was unwell, then obviously then that did start to affect her faculties, so we couldn’t see her when she did have her faculties.

Lead 2B: What about palliative care, end-of-life care, is that an issue that is raised by your members?

Ms Amanda Provis: It is.

Lead 2B: Finally, as we’ve spoken about, restrictions on funerals and memorial services, is that an issue that concerns you but also members of your group?

Ms Amanda Provis: Yes, it is.

Mr Poole: Ms Provis, I appreciate this won’t have been easy, but I have no further questions for you.

The Witness: Thank you.

Lady Hallett: Thank you very much indeed. Would you like to talk to somebody?

The Witness: No, I’m okay.

Lady Hallett: Are you sure? I saw you brought the photographs.

The Witness: Yeah, thank you.

(The witness withdrew)

Lady Hallett: I don’t know if anybody else is getting cold but I am getting distinctly chilly again.

Mr Poole: My Lady, we’re due next to hear from

Professor Emmanuel Ogbonna.

(Pause)

Mr Poole: Professor, could you start by giving us your full name?

The Witness: Professor Emmanuel Ogbonna.