A GRIEVING daughter is calling for an immediate public inquiry into the government’s handling of the Covid-19 crisis.

Sarah Nicola, who is a member of the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice, believes the government have failed to learn from previous mistakes during the pandemic.

She joined the group after her mother, Helen Nicola died at the age of 79 from the deadly virus in March of last year.

Now almost 12 months on, Sarah, who lives in Dalton, said she is adamant an inquiry is essential to ensure the government can save lives.

However, Barrow and Furness MP Simon Fell said he 'didn't believe now was the right time'.

She said: “Our aim is to ultimately have an inquiry – not that we can just learn lessons and think: ‘What can we do differently?’ but to stop the loss and suffering that we have all experienced.

“I feel like we could have learned so much from the early days when my mum and other people died in that first wave.

“We need to see what’s happening in other countries and determine why are our death rate is so high. It’s needed to see where we have gone wrong and what we could implement differently.

"For example, if we looked at Germany and how they implemented different policies to us - it can't be a coincidence that their figures are lower than ours.”

Sarah believes last summer provided a perfect chance to have a 'short, sharp and to the point' inquiry whilst cases were low, but the opportunity was not taken by the government.

Furthermore, Sarah is critical of some of the decisions the government has made during the pandemic.

Sarah argued: “The government was slow to lock down three times. The test and trace system didn’t work for such a long time and even now isn’t at the level of other countries.

“The borders are still open when they were supposed to shut in January. Look at the issues at the beginning surrounding PPE and care homes when hospital patients were discharged without a test and without any thinking about the impact on other residents.”

Last year, Boris Johnson revealed his plans for an independent inquiry, but has not said when this will happen.

Mr Fell said: "The Prime Minister has been clear that the book stops with him and that there will be a full enquiry into the response to Coronavirus.

"But I don't believe that the right time to have that enquiry is now - while the NHS is still stretched, a nationwide vaccination programme is running, and every arm of government - both national and local - is fully engaged in responding to the daily challenges of this pandemic."