The care sector was “an afterthought” during the Covid-19 pandemic with failings allowing the virus to “spread like wildfire” and resulting in thousands of deaths despite the claim there was a protective ring around care homes, the inquiry has found.
Then-health secretary Matt Hancock’s claim – made in May 2020 about protections at the start of the pandemic – was “unfounded”, UK Covid-19 Inquiry chairwoman Baroness Heather Hallett said today, adding: “Quite the opposite was true.”
The inquiry has found that vulnerable care home residents were left with “insufficient protection” as patients were discharged from hospitals without knowing if they had the virus.
The mantra of protecting the NHS “sometimes came at the expense of the users and providers of care”, the report found, with care homes “becoming prisons” for some amid visiting bans and many residents feeling “abandoned”.
Lady Hallett said the pandemic had “a devastating impact” on carers and those they cared for, and efforts to protect these groups “came too late”, with failures as a direct consequence of “an absence of proper pandemic planning for the adult social care sector”.
Her report said the “failures” set out in her findings “created environments in care settings in which the virus could spread like wildfire”.
There were more than 43,000 recorded care home deaths involving Covid-19 between March 2020 and July 2022, the report said, and inquiry hearings last year heard a civil servant describe the toll as a “generational slaughter within care homes”.
At a Downing Street press conference on May 15, 2020, Mr Hancock – who resigned from government in 2021 after admitting to breaking social distancing guidance by having an affair with a colleague – said: “Right from the start, we’ve tried to throw a protective ring around our care homes.”
Lady Hallett said: “At the critical early stages of the pandemic, not enough was done to protect those living and working in care homes. The claim that a so-called ‘protective ring’ had been thrown around care homes – ‘right from the start’ – was unfounded.
“Quite the opposite was true. During the crucial weeks of March and early April 2020, the overriding focus of the UK government and devolved administrations was on protecting hospitals.”
Mr Hancock declined to comment on today’s report but has previously defended his handling of an “impossible” situation.
Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice (CBFFJ) UK said Mr Hancock’s claim had been a “cruel lie”.
Speaking about the former health secretary’s comments, Mike Padgham, honorary president of North Yorkshire’s Independent Care Group, said: “That was certainly not the experience of those of us on the front line.
“Care homes were not protected in the way they should have been, and staff and residents were left dangerously exposed.
“Social care was not an afterthought to those of us who worked in it. It was our absolute priority, every hour of every day.
“Sadly, it was not always treated with that same priority by those making the decisions.”
Health Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “The report finds the adult social care sector was in a fragile state and insufficiently prepared for a pandemic, and that social care was too often treated as an afterthought in comparison to the priority placed on protecting the NHS.
“We will provide a full response to the report's recommendations in due course, but I agree with the chair when she says, adult social care has, for too long, been undervalued and under-recognised.
“That has to end, and I hope we can work cross party to support the Prime Minister's vision for a National Care Service in the future.”