The chair of the UK Covid inquiry, Heather Hallett, has published the report from the inquiry’s sixth module, which examined what happened in care homes during the pandemic. The Guardian reports that she found the ban on all family visits to care home residents at the start of the pandemic had “devastating consequences”, and that government failures allowed the virus to spread through care homes.
What happened
Module 6 of the inquiry looked at adult social care across the United Kingdom. According to The Guardian’s live coverage, the report concludes that failures by the UK government led to Covid spreading “like wildfire” in care homes. It also says the pandemic revealed the “underlying fragility of adult social care workforce”.
Hallett said the decision to stop all family visits was a mistake. She accepted that allowing visits “ran the risk of introducing the virus to an already vulnerable population”, but said stopping them caused “immense emotional harm”. In her statement, quoted by The Guardian, she said visits “provide essential human contact, routine and stability” and that family members often help their relatives to eat, drink and wash. She said there was “a significant decline in the health and wellbeing of residents, especially those with cognitive conditions like dementia.”
She noted that the idea of designated visitors and essential care partners was not introduced until the summer of 2020, which she called “a delay of several vital months”. She added that some people were not allowed to be with relatives who were dying, and that many families “remain wracked by a guilt that they do not deserve to carry.” The inquiry gathered these accounts through its listening exercise, Every Story Matters.
The Guardian also reports that Hallett said patients discharged from hospitals into care homes without testing should have been isolated. She described Matt Hancock’s 2020 claim that a “protective ring” had been thrown around care homes as the opposite of the truth.
On Do Not Attempt Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation notices, known as DNACPRs, Hallett said there were concerns that these were improperly imposed on groups such as people with learning disabilities and older people. “This should not have happened,” she said. The inquiry found no evidence of national policies supporting their blanket use, but said that the speed of the pandemic meant conversations about advance care plans were “too often rushed or nonexistent.”
Hallett also spoke about care workers. She said at least 1.5 million care workers were providing care during the pandemic, and that many suffered burnout from extreme stress and exhaustion. She said they felt “overlooked and undervalued”. She concluded that action taken by the UK government and devolved administrations to protect workers and users of adult social care “came too late”, and that the failures were “the direct result of an absence of proper pandemic planning for the adult social care sector.”
Why it matters if you live in United Kingdom
If you have a parent, grandparent or other relative in a care home, or expect to in future, the report’s recommendations on visiting are directly relevant. Hallett said “better guidance about the use of visiting restrictions must now be introduced” so that other families do not face the same experience. Her findings support the view that family members are often part of a resident’s care, not only visitors.
Many internationals in the UK work in adult social care. The report recommends that, in any future pandemic, financial support to protect care workers from economic hardship “must be in place at the start”. For care workers, that would mean help arriving immediately rather than later in a crisis.
The report also recommends a voluntary register for the social care workforce in England. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland already have such registers, and Hallett said they “proved invaluable during the pandemic”. They allowed governments to find recently retired professionals who could return to work and to send guidance straight to staff. “England must follow suit,” she said. If you work in care in England, a register of this kind could change how you receive official guidance during an emergency.
For families of people with learning disabilities, and for older people, the findings on DNACPR notices are important. The report says these notices should not have been applied to whole groups. It also highlights the value of having proper conversations about advance care plans, which record a person’s wishes about future medical care.
What to watch next
Hallett said her recommendations “must be acted upon now, before the next pandemic strikes.” The key question is how the government responds, especially on the proposed voluntary register for care workers in England and on new guidance for visiting restrictions. The Guardian’s coverage does not say when the government will reply or whether it has accepted the recommendations.
The care homes report came out on a busy day at Westminster. The same live coverage reports that the chancellor, John Healey, has ruled out raising capital gains tax in the budget. Tax Justice UK said this was a missed “open goal”, pointing to a CenTax thinktank plan that it says would raise £14bn. The Guardian also reports that the UK is to deploy RAF Typhoon fighter jets to help protect Saudi Arabia from Houthi attacks.
Readers who want to follow the inquiry can expect further debate as ministers, care providers and bereaved families respond to the findings.
Source: The Guardian
Sources
- The Guardian: Ban on family visits to care homes at start of pandemic had ‘devastating consequences’, inquiry finds – UK politics live, accessed 20 October 2026
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