Care home residents were sacrificed to ‘protect the NHS’ during Covid pandemic causing 43,000 deaths after failings saw virus ‘spread like wildfire’, damning inquiry finds

Vulnerable care home residents were treated as an ‘afterthought’ and sacrificed to ‘protect the NHS’, the Covid-19 inquiry has found.

More than 43,000 residents died after hospitals discharged infected patients into care homes without adequate protections, allowing the virus to ‘spread like wildfire’.

Claims by the then health secretary Matt Hancock that ministers had thrown a ‘protective ring’ around care homes ‘right from the start’ were untrue, inquiry chair Heather Hallett said.

Instead homes were unable to properly isolate new arrivals, there were not enough tests to check if they were infected and care workers lacked personal protective equipment (PPE), meaning they were forced to wear bin bags or waterproof ponchos from music festivals.

In the end, action to protect carers and residents came ‘too late’, with ‘devastating consequences’.

Around 25,000 patients were discharged from hospitals into care homes between March 17 and April 15, 2020, in a bid to free-up hospital beds.

But as the virus spread rapidly, care home residents were left feeling ‘isolated, abandoned and alone’ as visiting restrictions cut them off from loved ones – in some cases for months.

People were not allowed to be with dying friends or relatives in their final moments, leaving bereaved people ‘grief-stricken’.

Baroness Hallett said visiting restrictions caused ‘enormous harm’ and resulted in ‘significant decline’ in some people, particularly those with dementia.

She welcomed the decision to partially relax visiting restrictions in the summer of 2020 but said the benefits should have been recognised sooner.

She concludes: ‘Many remain wracked by a guilt that they do not deserve to carry.’

The inquiry found the Government knew before the pandemic of the ‘extreme vulnerability’ of care home residents to respiratory viruses but they received ‘insufficient protection at the time they most needed it’.

Failures stemmed from the absence of proper pre-pandemic planning.

Exercise Cygnus, a pandemic preparedness exercise conducted in October 2016, said more work was needed to ensure there would be enough surge capacity in care homes in the event of a pandemic but this had not been completed by the time the outbreak hit.

The report notes that had this been done it may have ‘helped ensure the safe isolation of all people admitted to care homes’.

Baroness Hallett said: ‘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.

‘The failures set out in this Report created environments in care settings in which the virus could spread like wildfire.’

She adds: ‘Preventing visits caused incalculable harm to residents and their loved ones and often resulted in a significant decline in the health and wellbeing of residents, especially those with complex cognitive conditions such as dementia.

‘The severity of the restrictions and the length of time they were imposed had profound and enduring effects.’

The inquiry examined concerns about the use of Do Not Attempt Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (DNACPR) decisions and found some were made inappropriately or without proper consultation, based on a person’s age, health condition or learning disability.

This may sometimes have been because health and social care workers lacked the skills to have end of life conversations ‘thoughtfully and compassionately,’ it says.

The report found care workers put their own lives at risk to help others, with some suffering ‘burnout’ and some leaving the profession early as a result of what they endured.

The failure to give them adequate PPE was ‘wholly unacceptable’ and the role of the care sector in society has been ‘undervalued and under-recognised’ for too long, it added. 

The UK Covid-19 Inquiry, which was established in June 2022 and has cost over £200million, is expected to publish its final report in the summer of 2027.

Today’s report into the care sector is the sixth of ten modules and has eight key recommendations to add to the 55 issued in the previous modules.

They include better planning for the safe isolation of care home residents, financial support for staff so they can afford to isolate if infected, new guidelines on visiting restrictions and mandatory end-of-life training for health and social care workers.

Baroness Hallett said: ‘The profound isolation and sense of abandonment felt by residents as a result of the visiting restrictions resulted in immense emotional harm.

‘Most distressingly, some people were not permitted to be with their dying loved ones. Many remain wracked by a guilt that they do not deserve to carry.

‘During the pandemic, the action taken by the UK government and devolved administrations to try and protect workers and users of adult social care came too late.

‘The failures were the direct result of an absence of proper pandemic planning for the adult social care sector.

‘It underlines why my recommendations in this report must be acted upon now before the next pandemic strikes.’

The report notes: ‘For many, the absence of visits from relatives meant that the care home no longer felt like their home.

‘Residents and relatives alike talked about care homes becoming prisons.’

Inquiry hearings last year heard a civil servant describe the death toll as a ‘generational slaughter within care homes’.

Mr Hancock told the inquiry that discharging patients into care homes had been ‘a question of what is the least worst solution to this terrible problem’. 

But 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.’

Bereaved families have previously called the phrase a ‘sickening lie’ and a ‘joke’.

The inquiry report stated: ‘Rhetoric such as the statement of Matt Hancock… that the UK government had tried to throw “a protective ring” around care homes “right from the start” does not accurately reflect the lack of action taken to protect care homes across the UK in March and the first half of April 2020.

‘The UK government and devolved administrations knew, prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, of the extreme vulnerability of care home residents to respiratory viruses.

‘Despite this, care homes received insufficient protection at the time they most needed it.’ 

Professor Martin Green, chief executive of trade body Care England, said: ‘Pressure in hospitals must never again be relieved by transferring unmanaged risk into adult social care.

‘The Inquiry’s recommendations are essential, but the real test now is implementation.’

Health secretary Yvette Cooper told the House of Commons the government would respond fully to the report ‘in due course’ but said: ‘My thoughts are with all those who lost loved ones in the pandemic, and especially those who endured the immense distress and harm of visiting restrictions in care homes, which meant they could not be with loved ones, even as they died.

‘I also pay tribute to all those who work to protect the most vulnerable, in very difficult circumstances from care workers to family members.’