ELDERLY SACRIFICED

In his scathing critique of the government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, Alistair Haimes (July/August) looks forward to a royal commission of inquiry. One must take care in prejudging the outcome, but I doubt whether the mass discharge of elderly patients to care homes could be anything less than institutional manslaughter. Half of those

dying from Covid-19 were care home residents, many caused by transferred patients seeding the disease in a highly vulnerable community. The buck stops with ministers, but highly paid senior administrators should not escape justice. This catastrophic policy was agreed by the Care Quality Commission, Public Health England and NHS management. A rotten establishment sacrificed older people for the politically correct slogan “Protect the NHS”. What did they do to deserve this callousness: was it how they voted?

Dr Niall McCrae

sutton, surrey