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JUL/AUG 2023
Issue 19 JULY/AUGUST 2025
Issue 79
Inquiry Reveals Pandemic Care Home Failures Harrowing evidence presented to the COVID-19 Inquiry throughout July has laid bare the impact of Government policy failures on care homes, with healthcare professionals describing being abandoned to work alone for days, while residents faced life-threatening circumstances. When the pandemic hit in March 2020, hospital patients were swiftly discharged into care homes in a bid to free up beds and prevent the NHS from becoming overwhelmed.
However, there was no policy in place requiring patients to be tested before admission, or for asymptomatic patients to isolate, until mid-April, despite mounting awareness of the risks of people without Covid-19 symptoms being able to spread the virus. Nearly 46,000 care home residents died with Covid in England and Wales between March 2020 and January 2022, many of them in the early weeks of the pandemic.
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