Sunday Mail A tragedy that was waiting to happen

The transfer of Covid-19 infected patients from hospitals to care homes will be an enduring scandal of the pandemic.

It beggars belief that the combined brains of Government ministers and public health officials couldn’t see this policy was a horrific tragedy waiting to happen.

Who knows how many of the more than 2000 people who have died in homes since March would be alive today had things been different.

It is difficult to comprehend the anger relatives of care home residents will feel at our revelations today which set out how the practice has been allowed to continue despite assurances it had stopped.

They have been effectively locked out of homes and refused access to their loved ones for more than eight months.

This is despite infection control experts repeatedly making clear that with the correct testing, PPE and procedures in place, visiting can be carried out safely.

Yet the same authorities who have deemed it too dangerous for them to be allowed in the front door appear to believe it is safe to quietly move Covid patients in the back.

Health Secretary Jeane Freeman has insisted this will only happen for “clinical” reasons in exceptional circumstances.

But what possible clinical reason could there be for moving an elderly patient suffering from Covid-19 from a hospital bed into a care home?

Freeman gave an assurance in April that nobody would be discharged to a care home without giving two negative test results.

In the interests of human decency and basic common sense, that promise should have been honoured.