Care home deaths: a “seismic verdict”

In the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, Matt Hancock, who was then health secretary, famously claimed to have thrown a “protective ring” around England’s care homes. But those of us with relatives in this overstretched sector have long known that was “a sick joke”, said Andrew Grice on The Independent. Now we’ve had it confirmed by a “landmark ruling” in the High Court, which found that the decision which led to 25,000 patients being discharged from hospitals to care homes in March and April 2020, many without being tested, was unlawful. I saw this tragedy up close when my 95-year-old mother caught Covid in her care home: she recovered, but five of her fellow residents died from the disease. This court ruling is a serious blow to the Government’s record of handling the pandemic. The overall reckoning, though, will have to wait until the official inquiry reports – and that won’t be until after the next election.

Regardless of what happens next, this “seismic verdict” has vindicated the two women who brought the case, Cathy Gardner and Fay Harris, said Tom Ough in The Daily Telegraph. Both their fathers died of Covid in early 2020 while in residential care. Dr Gardner saw her father, Michael Gibson, for the last time through a care home window, the day before he lost his life: family visits were banned at the time. In total, about 20,000 elderly care home residents died from the disease in the first wave, said the Daily Mail. Many spent their final hours “confused and alone”. Why were patients rushed from hospital back into care homes, where they carried a risk to other residents – without even being quarantined? Because the health establishment had a “monomaniacal focus” on freeing hospital beds and “propping up the NHS”.

A spokesperson for Hancock claimed that he had been cleared of wrongdoing. He blamed the now-defunct Public Health England for failing to tell ministers that there was a serious risk of the disease being transmitted by asymptomatic patients. Last week, Boris Johnson mounted the same defence, telling MPs that “we didn’t know” about asymptomatic transmission back then, said Michael Savage in The Guardian. But we did. The risk was often discussed. At a press conference on 25 March 2020, when untested patients were still being sent to care homes, Johnson raised the issue with the Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance. This ruling could pave the way for “Britain’s biggest-ever class action lawsuit” and a £200m pay-out to relatives, said John Siddle, Dan Hall and Jack Clover in The Mirror. But as one legal expert said, for bereaved families this isn’t about money. It’s about answers.