Pandemic care home failures amount to ‘generational slaughter'

Telegraph

13 hours ago

Care home failures during the pandemic amounted to 'generational slaughter', the Covid inquiry has been told.
Residents of care homes were let down by politicians who lost their 'moral compass' and made 'catastrophic' decisions, such as discharging untested or Covid-positive patients into the community, lawyers for bereaved families have argued.
On the opening day of the sixth module, investigating the care sector, Baroness Hallett, chairing the inquiry, heard submissions from bereaved families and others.
She will hear evidence later this week from Matt Hancock, the former health secretary.
Nearly 46,000 care home residents died with Covid in England and Wales between March 2020 and January 2022. According to official figures, nearly 18,500 residents in England died between March 14 and June 12 2020, accounting for around 40 per cent of deaths involving Covid during this period.
One of the areas to be examined by the inquiry will be government guidance for care homes, published on April 2 2020 and considered one of the worst mistakes of the pandemic.
The guidance said care homes could accept hospital patients with Covid, as well as take in hospital patients who had not been tested and look after them 'as normal' if they did not show symptoms of the virus. It meant that large numbers of untested hospital patients carried the virus into some of the most vulnerable communities in England, likely to have led to deaths.
The inquiry will also examine 'do not resuscitate' notices being placed on some care home residents and visiting policies that prevented families seeing their loved ones for months.
'Complete chaos'
Addressing the inquiry in his opening submissions, Pete Weatherby KC, representing Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK, quoted highly critical testimony from Alasdair Donaldson, a senior policy adviser in the Department for Health and Social Care's adult social care department, who joined at the start of the pandemic.
Mr Donalson was quoted as describing 'complete chaos' after his arrival, with 'no one knowing who was doing what or where responsibility lay' and finding that 'HR was unaware of people it was employing even to the nearest thousand'.
He was quoted as saying: 'My reluctant personal conclusion from what I directly witnessed is that the Civil Service I am proud to be part of catastrophically let down the people it was supposed to serve.
'All policy-makers should not shy away from the fact that they presided over something that was more than a natural disaster, inevitably exacerbated in places by a few incompetent or reckless errors.'
Mr Donaldson said that mistakes by the government at the time led to the deaths of thousands, and it was perhaps the biggest failure in modern times.
'Rather, the government public health response to Covid involved a series of catastrophic policy errors, an overall system performance that was, with notable exceptions, a profound failure, perhaps the greatest governmental policy failure of modern times,' he was quoted as saying.
'This failure resulted in the unnecessary deaths of tens of thousands of British citizens, including a generational slaughter within care homes, many of those victims having horrible deaths, often without the solace of their loved ones. Understanding the true causes of this failure is I believe owed to the victims, their families, to history and to the future.'
'Emotive and distressing'
Mr Weatherby KC said that bereaved families had come to a similar conclusion and demanded answers.
He said: 'Although the phrase 'generational slaughter' within care homes may sound hyperbolic or rather colourful language, it chimes with the experience of thousands of our families.
'We call out the callous way that family members were treated by politicians and policy makers, referring to them as bed blockers and people nearing the end regardless of the virus. This statement reflects that those in charge of policy lost their moral compass in dealing with those receiving care.'
Jacqueline Carey KC, counsel to the inquiry, had earlier explained the scope of the module, warning that it would be 'emotive and distressing for many people' and quoted testimony from a care home worker who described how the virus 'spread like wildfire'.
Ms Carey said the inquiry would investigate understaffing in care homes and the difficulties that faced staff working in them, who were often on minimum wage.
The hearings come as The Telegraph revealed that Prof Sir Chris Whitty was responsible for government guidance believed to have triggered the spread of Covid into care homes.
The Chief Medical Officer previously told the inquiry that he was 'not closely involved' in decisions behind a scheme to discharge thousands of hospital patients into care homes at the start of the pandemic.
However, government emails obtained by The Telegraph showed that Sir Chris's office signed off guidance for care homes in England, advising them that they could take patients from hospitals who had not been tested.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said Sir Chris would 'continue to support the Covid inquiry' and that it would be 'inappropriate to pre-judge' its findings.