COVID-M3.7 Response No Published Response Self-assessed

ICU Resource Allocation Framework

Recommendation

The UK government and devolved administrations should publish a UK-wide framework setting out ethical and operational principles to guide the allocation of adult intensive care resources in the extreme event that they are saturated during a pandemic. That framework must: be informed by comprehensive engagement with the public and developed in conjunction with professionals across healthcare, law and ethics, as well as with regulators of healthcare professionals; set out clearly established triggers for its use, based at least in part on a UK-wide system that measures critical care capacity strain and facilitates mutual aid (such as the CRITCON tool used in England); establish clinicians' legal and professional duties in applying the framework, which should be clearly explained to clinicians through guidance; and be regularly reviewed with reference to contemporary patient data during a pandemic, and any future use of it must be evaluated and reported on publicly. A plan and timeline for completing this work should be published within six months of this Report. Application of the framework should be tested as part of the pandemic response exercises recommended in the Inquiry's Module 1 Report (Recommendation 6).

Jurisdiction
UK-wide
Response
No Published Response
No Published Response Scottish Government Initial Response
19 Mar 2026

No formal response published by this government.

No Published Response Welsh Government Follow-up
19 Mar 2026

No formal response published by this government.

No Published Response Northern Ireland Executive Follow-up
19 Mar 2026

No formal response published by this government.

Progress Timeline
Official Report
19 Mar 2026

Status: Pending. No government response yet received. Module 3 report published 19 March 2026.

Source
Report Module 3: Impact on Healthcare Systems 19 Mar 2026
Responsible Bodies
Department of Health and Social Care Primary
Last formal update 19 Mar 2026