Covid spread "like wildfire" in care homes, inquiry finds

Government failures allowed Covid-19 to spread "like wildfire" among elderly and vulnerable people in care homes, the UK Covid inquiry has found, and the "protective ring" that Matt Hancock said he threw around them did not exist.

In her report on adult social care, published on Tuesday, the inquiry's chair, Heather Hallett, said the care sector had been an "afterthought". She rejected the former health secretary's long-standing claim as "unfounded", saying "the opposite was true".

"The adult social care sector as a whole appeared to be something of an afterthought, where the mantra of 'protecting the NHS' sometimes came at the expense of the users and providers of care," she said. "Care homes received insufficient protection at the time they most needed it. These failures created environments in care settings in which the virus could spread like wildfire."

Hospital discharges

About 25,000 hospital patients were discharged into care homes to free up NHS beds before mandatory testing was introduced on 15 April 2020, a policy later ruled unlawful by the High Court. Mr Hancock told the inquiry it was the "least worst decision to a terrible problem".

Lady Hallett accepted the discharges were needed to free beds, but said the failure to advise care homes to isolate those patients was a "significant omission". She said it was "wholly unacceptable" that care staff were left without proper protective equipment, with some resorting to festival ponchos, painters' overalls and bin bags.

She also described the "immense emotional harm" caused by banning visits, which left residents with "profound isolation and a sense of abandonment". "Most distressingly, some people were not permitted to be with their dying loved ones," she said.

Eight recommendations

More than 43,000 people died from Covid-19 in UK care homes between March 2020 and July 2022. Lady Hallett made eight recommendations, including better pandemic planning, financial support for care staff to self-isolate, and guidance that residents have the "right to in-person visitors, except in the most grave or exceptional of circumstances". She also called for mandatory end-of-life care training, after concerns about blanket "do not resuscitate" decisions.

Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK called Mr Hancock's protective ring a "cruel lie". Jean Adamson, whose father, the Windrush pioneer Aldrick Adamson, died in a care home after catching Covid, said the report was "a devastating account of one of the darkest episodes in our country's history", but that its recommendations did not go far enough.

The prime minister, Andy Burnham, said the government was "committed to learning the lessons" and would use the findings to plan for any future pandemic.

Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK, said the report was "quietly devastating" and reinforced the need for fundamental reform of social care.

The report is the sixth of ten from the inquiry, which has cost more than £200m, making it the most expensive public inquiry in British history.