The UK Covid-19 Inquiry has found that the adult social care sector was "an afterthought" during the pandemic, with failings that allowed the virus to "spread like wildfire" and resulted in thousands of deaths, despite then-health secretary Matt Hancock's claim of a protective ring around care homes.
Inquiry chairwoman Baroness Heather Hallett said Mr Hancock's claim, made in May 2020, was "unfounded", adding: "Quite the opposite was true." The inquiry found that vulnerable care home residents were left with "insufficient protection" as patients were discharged from hospitals without knowing if they had the virus.
Failings in the Care Sector
The report found that the mantra of protecting the NHS "sometimes came at the expense of the users and providers of care", 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".
There were more than 43,000 recorded care home deaths involving Covid-19 between March 2020 and July 2022, the report said. Inquiry hearings last year heard a civil servant describe the toll as a "generational slaughter within care homes".
Hancock's Claim and Reactions
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".
In a video statement following the publication of her report on Tuesday, 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." She added: "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 Tuesday'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 on behalf of the group, Jean Adamson, the daughter of Windrush pioneer Aldrick Adamson who died having caught Covid in his care home, said the report was "a devastating account of one of the darkest episodes in our country's history". She said: "It shows that the government knew the care sector was extremely vulnerable to a pandemic and yet did nothing. Failing to act until it was too late. It shows that Matt Hancock's claim to have thrown a protective ring around care homes was a cruel lie."
Report Findings and Recommendations
The 287-page report also found that preventing visits to care homes "caused incalculable harm to residents and their loved ones", shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) led to care workers having to work with no PPE at all, and do not attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation (DNACPR) decisions made during the pandemic based on age or disability caused "considerable distress". The inquiry branded this "unacceptable" and said it "must not happen again".
Support for the approximately 5.8 million unpaid carers across the UK "came too late", and many of the at least 1.5 million care workers in the pandemic "put their lives at risk to provide care", but a lack of centrally recorded data on care worker deaths hindered understanding of the virus's impact.
Among her recommendations, Lady Hallett called for better pandemic planning, including tracking bed capacity and staffing levels in care homes, ensuring financial support for staff to self-isolate, and publishing guidance on visiting restrictions based on the principle 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 and a voluntary workforce register for adult social care workers.
Unison, which describes itself as the biggest union in the social care sector, said: "The inquiry's damning report underlines the urgent need for proper funding, root and branch reform, and decent pay and conditions for social care staff." 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." She added that the government will provide a full response to the report's recommendations in due course.
