Horrific care home crisis is shameful

NOTHING symbolises the Government’s chaotic handling of the care home crisis more than the

Temple Court scandal.

As we reveal today, the Kettering home had to be closed after 15 elderly residents died and staff fell sick following a “sudden influx” of patients from NHS hospitals.

None of the incoming hospital patients had been tested for the coronavirus.

Before the admissions, the Northamptonshire home had been virus-free.

Staff claim it became a “dumping ground” for elderly Covid-19 patients.

An investigation is under way, but the question is wider than just one home.

Sending untested patients from hospitals into homes with the most frail, vulnerable and at-risk elderly residents was widespread practice.

Warnings

Allowing it was a strategic political decision by a government which, throughout this shameful care home saga, has at best shown little care for our older loved ones. At worst, it has treated them as expendable.

Until this weekend, when the fatalities became too shocking to disregard any longer, Health Secretary Matt Hancock ignored all warnings, week after week, from this newspaper.

We warned of the care home time bomb, of the thousands of loved ones sacrificed to a flawed policy. We warned that the care home sector was on the brink of financial collapse.

Yet even when belatedly announcing tests for all staff and residents before the end of the month, he attempts to cover up and obscure the truth.

The Government did not, as he claims, try to “throw a protective ring around care homes”. It did the opposite, opening them up to untested patients from hospitals.

Supplies of PPE were diverted to the NHS to cover up shortages. And even now, Mr Hancock seeks to take credit for £3.2billion extra spending for care homes, most of which has never reached the front line.

He says an additional £600million has “saved lives” but it has not even cleared Whitehall desks.

Mr Hancock is being lined up as a fall guy for the Government’s failings.

Others will need to be in the dock, but when the shoe fits…