The latest report of the Covid Inquiry has concluded that elderly care home residents were sacrificed to save the NHS during the pandemic. It says the virus was allowed to ‘spread like wildfire’ through care homes, and that it was a ‘significant omission’ that the government did not advise that that patients discharged from hospitals into care homes should be isolated. Some 43,000 care home residents died from Covid between March 2020 and July 2022. Ministers, including Matt Hancock, the health secretary at the time, are accused of focused on protecting hospitals, treating social care as ‘something of an afterthought’.
Is anyone honestly surprised by these latest detailed revelations?
Baroness Heather Hallett, the retired judge who is chairing the inquiry, is unsparing of Hancock in particular. She highlighted how he claimed to have thrown a ‘protective ring’ around care homes ‘right from the start’ of the pandemic. She dismissed this claim as ‘unfounded’, and added: ‘Quite the opposite was true.’ Damning words directed at a former Secretary of State.
The inquiry found that the suffering of care home residents was made worse by draconian visiting restrictions which caused ‘incalculable harm’. Each and every example highlighted in the report makes for harrowing reading, include cases of people with dementia who ‘forgot who they were’ because they were denied contact with friends and family. The judge said that, while visiting restrictions were necessary in the early part of the pandemic to protect life, the ‘balance of harms’ shifted and increasingly the restrictions caused more harm than good. That much will have been evident at the time to the families denied access to their loved ones by ministerial diktat.
All of which highlights the bigger problem with this ongoing investigation, which is that – apart from the harrowing details – the broader picture is already well established. Is anyone honestly surprised by these latest detailed revelations? It prompts the question of what purpose is now being served by this lengthy and seemingly endless inquiry, which started in 2022 and is not expected to deliver its final report until next summer at the earliest.
Defenders of the process insist that the wide terms of reference and the statutory nature of the inquiry make it the broadest investigation of its kind in British history. They also point out that shorter inquiries into the pandemic, such as the one conducted by Sweden, were largely paper exercises and not directly comparable in scope. Well, maybe, but does that really justify the snail’s pace of our own inquiry, which is divided into ten modules. Module one (if anyone can cast their mind back far enough) covered ‘resilience and preparedness’, and reported in July 2024. The second module covered ‘government decision-making’; other modules looked at healthcare, vaccines and procurement. Today’s report is the sixth. Baroness Hallett has issued eight recommendations this time, on top of the 55 recommendations issued in the previous five modules. Prizes to anyone who can list any of the earlier recommendations and point to subsequent actions taken.
Just as troubling is the expense of this legal and political circus. The inquiry has so far cost more than £200 million. Is that really the best use of public money at a time of spending pressures? It points to a fetish in governing circles to commission inquiries, preferably lengthy ones, at the drop of a hat. There have been 80 since 1990, with an average duration of two and a half years. There are presently 15 active inquiries taking place, all with the objective of learning lessons to prevent whatever happened from happening again. The language is all about ‘learning lessons’ but with no obvious way of quantifying how exactly this has or will be achieved. If the main point of an inquiry is indeed to learn vital lessons and with a due sense of urgency, a public inquiry really isn’t the best way to go about it. The process simply takes far too long, with conclusions and recommendations produced long after everyone in power at the time has long departed from the scene. A cynic might suggest that this is actually the point of these inquiries, to shield decision-makers and others in positions of authority or power from the prospect of any immediate accountability. The Covid inquiry, regrettably, is in danger of falling into the same trap. There has to be a better way than this.
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