Government failures in care settings created an environment that allowed Covid to spread like wildfire, an official inquiry has said.
The sixth report from the Covid inquiry said the care sector appeared to be “something of an afterthought” in the early stages of the pandemic and there was no “protective ring” put around homes as claimed by ministers at the time.
There were more than 43,000 recorded deaths involving Covid in care homes between March 2020 and July 2022.
The 287-page report also highlighted shortages of PPE for carers and criticised the way hospital patients were discharged into care homes.
It said limits on visits caused enormous harm to residents and their loved ones, though it blamed this on care homes themselves.
Around 1.5 million adults were either living in care homes or receiving support in their own homes when Covid hit.
Action to protect them came too late, causing devastating consequences, the inquiry said.
Chair Baroness Hallet said a lack of testing, PPE and pre-pandemic planning combined with policy decisions early on “created an environment in which the virus could spread like wildfire”.
“At the critical early stages of the pandemic, not enough was done to protect those living and working in care homes,” she said.
“The overriding focus of the UK government and devolved administrations was on protecting hospitals.”
