Social care was an “afterthought” during the Covid-19 pandemic, and government failures allowed the virus to “spread like wildfire” through care homes.
Those are some of the damning findings in the latest report by the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, chaired by Baroness Hallett. It focused on the “devastating” impact of the virus on adult social care in the UK. More than 43,000 people in care homes were recorded to have died with Covid between March 2020 and July 2022. Last year, a senior civil servant told the inquiry it amounted to “generational slaughter”, said the BBC.
1. Social care was an ‘afterthought’
All four UK governments initially focused on protecting hospitals. Adult social care “appeared to be something of an afterthought”, said the report. The “mantra of ‘protecting the NHS’ sometimes came at the expense of the users and providers of care”.
These failures “created environments in care settings in which the virus could spread like wildfire”.
2. Hancock’s ‘protective ring’ was false
Matt Hancock, then the health secretary, claimed ministers had “tried to throw a protective ring” around care homes “right from the start” of the pandemic. That claim was “unfounded”, said the inquiry. “Quite the opposite was true.”
“Unfounded is an understatement,” said Sky News. At the start of the pandemic, about 25,000 patients were discharged from hospitals into care homes – most without being tested for Covid – to “free up beds”. They and care home staff then received insufficient protection and guidance, “with devastating consequences”, said the inquiry.
The policy was later ruled unlawful by the High Court. Jean Adamson, speaking on behalf of bereaved families, called Hancock’s claim a “cruel lie”, said Sky News. Hancock isn’t commenting on the report.
3. Visiting restrictions did ‘immense’ harm
Elderly residents’ suffering was “compounded by draconian visiting restrictions”, said The Times. These caused “incalculable harm”, leaving people to die “abandoned and alone”, without “the comfort or support of their loved ones”, the report said.
Strict visiting limits were necessary at the start of the pandemic to protect people, but the “balance of harms” shifted; they increasingly did more harm than good, Hallett said.
The “profound isolation and sense of abandonment” caused by keeping them in place resulted in “immense emotional harm” to residents. Many whose loved ones died without them now remain “wracked with guilt that they do not deserve to carry”.
4. ‘Desperate measures’ for protective equipment
Unsurprisingly, difficulties getting hold of personal protective equipment (PPE) were “a key theme of this report”, said the BBC.
Hospitals were “prioritised for supplies”, leaving care workers resorting to “some very desperate measures”. There were cases of workers “using festival waterproof ponchos, painters’ overalls and bin bags as makeshift PPE”.
Supply problems were a global issue, the report acknowledged, but better planning would have helped. The lack of PPE for care home staff was “wholly unacceptable”.
5. Social care was already ‘a concern’
A 2016 simulation exercise testing the UK’s response to a pandemic found the social care sector was a “particular concern”.
But when Covid-19 emerged, recommendations had “not been completed”, said the inquiry, leaving ministers to make decisions “without the information they needed”.
Millions of unpaid, “undervalued” carers were “heavily relied upon” without adequate support. The scale of death and suffering they witnessed was “unlike anything they had seen before”, said the report.