COVID-19 Public Inquiry Document Preservation: STOP Notice

January 25, 2022

Message on behalf of Kam Dhami, Director of Governance/Senior Information Risk Owner:

Dear colleague,

We all recognise that the fight against COVID-19 is far from over. Thank you for everything that you are doing to try and overcome the latest wave.

In Spring this year a statutory nationwide Public Inquiry into the pandemic will begin. In order to ensure that the process truly learns from what has gone right and what has gone wrong, we need to preserve our records and our knowledge.

Attached is a national stop notice asking all NHS employees to retain all information relating to COVID-19, including documents, texts, WhatsApp messages and emails. This will help us to marshal our learning and support the Trust to contribute to the Inquiry.

I appreciate that this notice may seem daunting or worrying. Please be assured that it is simply an encouragement to store information. I am leading the internal inquiry team on behalf of the Board and will be in touch again later in the year about what you need to do, and how we can all help. Until then hang onto everything, do not destroy any information, and let’s work together to make sure that we can reflect on what has happened with strong records and good information.

If you do have any immediate queries, please be in touch via Swbh.data.controller@nhs.net

Best wishes,

Kam Dhami

Director of Governance / Senior Information Risk Owner