1) The government has been deliberately starving the NHS of resources for years to the point where it couldn't afford to stockpile
2) The government pursued a deliberate policy of Herd Immunity, wanting the population to catch COVID-19 to protect the economy.
Please don't argue against 2) there BTW. There are many many video clips of Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock stating that was the strategy, "take it on the chin" and all that. There's an effort to pretend that wasn't the strategy, but that's clearly just more lies from a group of people who lie without pause.