Programme of Work - COVID-19 Evaluation

Planned Programme of Work

The COVID-19 Evaluation’s programme of work will be approached in a phased manner, aligned with the Terms of Reference to:

Provide a factual account of the overall strategy and approach to planning for and handling of the pandemic including the structures and processes put in place to support whole-of-Government decision-making and response.

Identify lessons learned, including what worked well, having regard to:
– The overall performance of the health and social care system; and
– Impacts, both immediate and longer term, on individuals, families and communities of non-pharmaceutical interventions and the Government’s response to managing and mitigating risks of the disease and competing sectoral policy objectives (including the impact of a range of sectoral, business/economic and personal income supports).

Undertake a module of work to:
– Examine the response of COVID-19 in long-term residential care facilities for older persons, taking particular account of the report of the Expert Panel on Nursing Homes, subsequent implementation progress reports, and any relevant outputs from other documentary analysis and information gathering (including the lived experience of the bereaved families); and
– Provide an overall assessment of learnings as part of their work.

Make recommendations on guiding principles and processes which can:
– Strengthen decision-making and transparency;
– Assist in assessing and balancing the complexity of potential trade-offs and the need to move speedily and with agility in these scenarios; and
– Provide a framework to ensure democratic processes and civil rights are safeguarded in the context of whole-of-society responses to rapidly moving threats of this scale and duration.

The overall approach to the Evaluation will be open, iterative and collaborative.

The aim of the Evaluation is to develop a clear systemic understanding of how the Government, its departments and agencies, managed the pandemic. This will be enhanced through a focus on performance and impacts, to inform learnings. Central to this approach is a holistic understanding of people’s experiences and how the pandemic impacted their lives. Consideration of trade-offs, including long-term versus short-term impacts, will help illuminate decision-making outcomes.

The phased programme of work will commence with a whole-system review of structures, frameworks and processes, through documentary analysis. This will involve reviewing plans, reports and relevant work undertaken across Government, and internationally, to examine diverse aspects of the overall response. This will be followed by necessary direct engagement with key decision-makers. This will allow the Panel to identify strengths and weaknesses and related alternatives or better approaches.

In identifying lessons learned, early work will harness existing national and international publicly available research and reports. Consultation and engagement will provide valuable input, including how individuals, families, communities, businesses, and frontline workers were impacted. How different groups in society may have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic will be an important area of exploration.

There will be a stand-alone module of work to examine the response to COVID-19 in long-term residential care facilities for older persons. This module will draw learnings from documentary analysis and information gathering, building on the report and implementation of the Expert Panel on Nursing Homes. Crucially this will be coupled with consultation and engagement, exploring personal experiences, including that of bereaved families. Separating this module enables an in-depth focus, given the importance of the nursing homes pandemic experience.

Recommendations will draw on the totality of the Evaluation Panel’s work, along with best practices, to arrive at guiding principles and approaches. This will help ensure strengthened levels of preparedness should emergencies of this magnitude arise in the future.