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As we fast approach the commencement of a public enquiry as to how the Government managed its response to the Covid pandemic, CCFTV is in discussion with a material number of families who suffered greatly as a consequence of what we believe was deliberate failure to safeguard older vulnerable people in care homes, having made the choice to protect the NHS. Some might think that choice was a necessary evil, given the need to ensure the welfare of younger people and NHS staff. CCFTV believes that all lives have equal value and that many of our vulnerable elderly are the very same people upon which many UK institutions were not only founded but sustained for the good of future generations.

It is very difficult, therefore, not to conclude that Government - despite the then Health Secretary categorically stating that a ‘ring of steel existed around the care sector - knew that the risk of transferring patients from hospitals to care homes without first ensuring they were Covid free, would have fatal ramifications, but regardless they prioritised other generations. Families had little or no time at all to consider whether or not their elderly loved one would have been safer at home with them, as opposed to remaining in a care home at the mercy of an invisible killer virus that spread like wildfire through any close community in which it had taken root.

Furthermore, it appears discriminatory to place some much value on the lives of NHS staff and so little on those who work in social care and in particular, at care homes. The early response to providing adequate PPE was so much slower for care homes and indeed many providers had sourced their own supplies in the first instance, in an effort to protect their staff. Those same providers were being urged o take admissions to assist the NHS in the belief that incoming admissions had been screened and naturally only transferred to that care home because they had a negative test result. We now know that very many in those first few weeks were not tested at all and departed hospitals with Covid, only to spread it throughout the care home in which they then lived.

Families' hardship was further compounded by the lockdown requirements that resulted in many care home residents not having any family visitors for months on end. That situation was exacerbated as social workers, safeguarding teams and CQC inspectors all ceased to visit, effectively abandoning older people to the ravages of the pandemic and to the best endeavours of seriously depleted staffing cohorts as many were absent as a result of isolation and sickness themselves. During those months we have statements from staff and families that many homes were under-resourced and that residents were very fortunate to have even got the bare minimum in terms of the care they needed. Many homes operated heroically yet vast numbers of residents died. Families will never know if that was as a consequence of having caught Covid, or whether their demise was hastened or even resulted in the lack of care.