My dad was in a care home when Covid hit in March 2020 and visits were stopped (UK government failures led to Covid spreading ‘like wildfire’ in care homes, inquiry finds, 20 October). It was heartbreaking not being able to see him, and talking to him via phone was almost impossible. I couldn’t see how Covid wouldn’t spread to the home as there wasn’t any testing at that point. He was a sitting duck and there was nothing I could do.
In late April 2020, when I had been calling all day, eventually someone answered and told me they were too busy to talk. The next day when I called, I was told Dad wasn’t feeling very well. I asked if there was Covid in the home: they were honest and said there was. I was distraught.
I then received the inevitable call in the early hours next morning from the home, saying my father had been taken to hospital with suspected Covid. My conversation with the hospital was soul-destroying. They would make Dad as comfortable as possible, he wouldn’t be given oxygen and no resuscitation would be given. The only positive was that I’d be able to go in and see him when he was close to death – they would call me.
In a way I felt as though I was one of the lucky ones, being with my father as he passed away, convulsing and gasping for his last breath. I will never forget it.
Diane La Rosa
Tottenham, London
My father died in a care home during Covid, surrounded by close family. For many weeks before that we couldn’t touch him or hold his hand. Restrictions were still in place, as others in government were partying. It was only when he was dying, and a kind nurse telephoned us to say he’d taken a sudden turn for the worse, that we all ignored the rules and rushed to the nursing home to be with him, speak to him, tell him he could let go – give him permission to take his last breath.
Until then only my mother and I had spent any time with him, and that was 10 minutes in a cold segregation room where he looked at us blankly as a tear rolled down his cheek. All other times it was waving through the window of the care home to him. He had dementia and didn’t understand why his family was deserting him.
As agency staff entered the care home – strangers to my dad and possibly carriers of the virus – we, his family, were locked out. We took the tests, we wore the PPE, we pleaded with the care home, we promised to be extremely vigilant; anything to allow us to see our loved ones while doing everything we could to safeguard them against the virus.
Please support Gloria’s Law, which would give everyone a right to a care supporter when using health or care services. Allow care givers and loved ones access during any future pandemic so that people don’t die scared, lonely and alone.
Teresa Pacey-Devlin
Bassingfield, Nottinghamshire
Boris Johnson apologised to me in parliament on 19 April 2022 for his partying in Downing Street while my wife and thousands of others were dying from Covid (Letters, 14 April 2022).
Many of us had already suspected the unimaginable, that Johnson and the health secretary were prepared to let us older people die. Now we know the awful truth: there was no “protective ring”, no “ring of steel” around care homes, just a ring of lies.
John Robinson
Lichfield
Sadly, it comes as no surprise that Lady Hallett rejected Matt Hancock’s long-held claim that he threw a “protective ring” around care homes from the start of the pandemic, saying it was “unfounded”. I was working as a nurse in a large acute hospital at the time of Covid, in particular within the interface between the NHS and social care. I kept a diary.
This is what I noted on 31 March 2020: “So we are starting to see the fallout from poor policy/guidance from DH/NHSE. Discharge plans to care homes etc causing huge amount of understandable confusion and even possible cross-infection across the sector. Care home managers saying no to at risk patients ‘ready’ for d/c as too many unknown factors/risk in terms of Covid. Really is a mess. Watch this space as the impact in care home sector could be huge.”
I look back with anger, sadness and shame at how our colleagues in the care sector and their residents/clients (and respective families) were treated. Never again, please.
David Flood
Wimbledon, London
The Covid inquiry’s report on the care sector finds that about 5.8 million people were caring unpaid for a family member or friend during the pandemic. Many did so for months without a break, buying their own protective equipment and taking on medication, injections, dressings and end-of-life care at home with little or no training. In 2021, almost three in four had still not had a single break since the pandemic began.
Yet none of the report’s eight recommendations is about them. Their experience gets a chapter section of findings, a short paragraph in the executive summary, and nothing the four governments must formally answer.
The report is clear about why help failed to reach them: nobody knew who they were. There is no register of unpaid carers anywhere in the UK. A minister at the time told the inquiry the government had limited knowledge of who was caring. Northern Ireland resorted to leafleting every household.
This is fixable. The government’s Pandemic Preparedness Strategy, published in March, already commits to identifying unpaid carers in England by digital means, and the report points to GP records and health apps as practical routes. What is missing is a deadline and someone accountable for meeting it.
When ministers respond to this report, they should add the recommendation it lacks: that everyone caring for someone they love can be found, told what help exists and offered a break, well before the next pandemic arrives.
James Townsend
Chief executive and co-founder, Mobilise
