The new care home scandal

Care homes have been at the centre of controversy and mishandling throughout the Covid-19 crisis. Decisions taken last spring to move patients out of hospital, without so much as a Covid-19 test, contributed to a surge of cases in facilities designed to look after Britain’s most vulnerable. Failure to tackle early on the problem of asymptomatic transmission meant that workers weren’t isolated. They unknowingly brought the virus in, sometimes to multiple homes. Zero detection – until it was too late – resulted in tragedy. It’s estimated that over 29,000 excess deaths have occurred in care homes since last March.

Now there is another care home scandal brewing, the details of which are just coming to light. It stems from overcorrections made to our original, failed attempt to protect residents during the first leg of the pandemic: that some residents have been living in ‘prison-like’ circumstances, deprived of contact with loved ones.