A recent report published on the management of Covid-19, found that the UK government did not provide enough protection to care homes during the early stages of the pandemic.

Baroness Heather Hallet, Chair of the UK Covid-19 inquiry, published the sixth report out of 10 investigations in the Inquiry yesterday, and looked at ‘Care Sector’ decisions made by governance across the UK.

Baroness Hallet concluded that the adult social care sector seemed to be “something of an afterthought” with failures leading the virus to “spread like wildfire” and that measures taken ‘came too late.’

In care homes, there were over 43,000 recorded deaths involving Covid-19 between March 2020 and July 2022 with Covid-19 being the second leading cause of death in care homes in all four nations of the UK in 2020.

A claim made in May 2020 by Health Secretary at the time, Matt Hancock, that ‘a protective ring’ was placed around care homes “right from the start” was regarded as ‘unfounded’ by the inquiry.

Insufficient protection had actually lasted until mid April 2020.

The UK government knew prior to the pandemic that care homes had extreme vulnerability to respiratory viruses.

In March 2020, each nation decided to rapidly discharge patients from hospitals to free up much-needed hospital beds.

Limited test availability meant that patients were discharged from hospital to care homes without knowing whether they had Covid-19 at a time; where there was no vaccine.

The inquiry also found that guidance was limited and unrealistic in March 2020, with official guidance from England, Wales and Northern Ireland not including emphasis on isolation and social distancing.

The report said, this was a significant oversight.

The three nations advised care workers to avoid being within two metres of the person they cared for and this didn’t take into account daily care tasks such as washing, eating and dressing.

From mid-March 2020, care workers were advised to wear personal protective equipment (PPE) amidst a severe shortage of PPE supplies.

This resulted in care workers working in either unsuitable or poor-quality PPE or with no PPE at all, reportedly resorting to makeshifts such as bin bags and waterproof ponchos.