Apologising on care homes might begin to restore trust
When Boris Johnson held a video call with a care home for a photo opportunity cooked up by his media advisers, he rang one in Hertfordshire to congratulate it for remaining Covid-free. What he didn’t say was that more than 500 care home residents have died in the county, which is believed to be among the worst affected by the pandemic.
My 95-year-old mother lives in one of those hit. Her home was overwhelmed by the coronavirus. She lost several friends to it. She caught it, too. The home advised us she would be safer if she stayed there. We insisted she went to hospital and, thankfully, she recovered. We are very lucky she is still with us. The families of the 22,000 care home residents who have died are not so lucky.
My mum’s home followed the guidance sent out by the government. I don’t blame it for the tragedy that engulfed it, as Johnson appeared to do when he claimed this week that “too many care homes didn’t really
follow the procedures in the way that they could have”.
My own experience suggests that the homes which waited for the government’s slow, chaotic and repeatedly changed “regulations” did worse than those which took matters into their own hands. My 97year-old mother-in-law’s home in London locked down early, banning visits, keeping residents in their rooms and not using the agency workers who work in different homes (long before ministers woke up to this obvious problem). Her home has remained coronavirus-free.
The National Audit Office spending watchdog reported: “Between 13 March and 15 May, in addition to wider guidance on matters such as PPE [personal protective equipment], the Department [of Health and Social Care] issued various pieces of guidance to the adult social care sector with numerous updates. Provider organisations raised concerns that the number of updates and changes to guidance were hard to follow, and that they left some issues with regard to testing, PPE and the workforce unaddressed.” On 15 April, the government issued its “social care action plan” after outbreaks in care homes had peaked at the start of the month.
We know that about 25,000 hospital patients were discharged to care homes between 17 March and 15 April, when testing them for the virus was belatedly ordered. The government promised that all care home residents and staff would be tested by early June, but only a third of residents were; characteristically, the target had been quietly changed by “offering” tests and declaring them met.
A fairer criticism for Johnson to have made would have been that care homes did “follow the procedures” rather than their own instincts. That would have put the spotlight on the government’s poor guidance, however, and not suited his cynical blame game. This guidance said on 25 February: “It remains very unlikely that people receiving care in a care home or the community will become infected.”
Downing Street insists Johnson was not blaming the homes but pointing out that nobody knew the correct procedures because the extent of asymptomatic transmission was unknown. Yet on 10 February, the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) warned: “Asymptomatic transmission cannot be ruled out and transmission from mildly symptomatic individuals is likely.”
Johnson’s remarks are rightly seen as a sick joke by carers who have put themselves and their own families at risk by working heroically during this crisis. They were already angry about Matt Hancock’s ridiculous claim to have thrown a “protective ring” around care homes from the start. I look forward to the public inquiry’s verdict on that one.
Johnson would start to regain the trust of care home workers, residents and their families, if he could summon up the courage to apologise for his crass remarks. But he won’t. He would rather hope that some of the mud sticks, and that some people will think care homes are partly responsible for this disaster.
Team Boris appears to regard saying sorry as a sign of weakness and that, far from calming public anger, it would bring demands for punishment. It’s fine to apologise for the failings of previous governments, as Hancock did after the inquiry into three medical scandals that affected women, but not for anything too close to home, such as Dominic Cummings’ travels during lockdown or deaths in care homes. However, I suspect that the public would be more understanding and forgiving than No 10 aides think, especially in such an unprecedented crisis.
Johnson’s remarks are rightly seen as a sick joke by carers who have put themselves and their families at risk by working heroically during this crisis
Johnson might believe he can scramble a messy draw at the public inquiry by spreading the blame – to the civil service, Public Health England, care homes and perhaps even his scientific advisers – and then get some credit, eventually, for the government’s response to the economic crisis.
This strategy could work but only if he reforms social care in a fair and properly funded way. There will never be a better opportunity to do it. If he doesn’t, Johnson won’t be forgiven by many for his woeful record on care homes.