At a meeting with care workers in Nottinghamshire today,
has called on the Prime Minister to commit to making
the crisis in social care a key focus for the independent inquiry
into the UK’s response to coronavirus.
The Labour leader today condemned the Government’s failure
to protect care homes during the first phase of the coronavirus
pandemic as a “national shame”. Starmer met yesterday with
bereaved families of Covid-19 victims, including those who lost
relatives in care homes.
The Government-commissioned Preparing for a challenging
winter report published this week noted that ‘July and
August must be a period of intense preparation’ and made a series
of recommendations to improve the UK’s resilience to coronavirus
ahead of the winter months.
It has emerged that previous warnings over the risks to
social care during a pandemic were ignored. The leaked version of
the Government’s Exercise Cygnus warned that there was “little
attention paid’ to the care sector, and the Chief Executive of
Care England revealed in May that the report’s “clear
recommendations…haven’t been implemented.”
On his visit to Gedling, Nottinghamshire, Labour
Party leader said:
“The Government’s failure to protect our care homes at the
start of the pandemic was a national shame. I pay tribute to care
staff who did everything they could but were left without tests
or protective equipment.
“An independent inquiry was always inevitable. But the
Prime Minister must now guarantee that social care will be a key
area of focus for that inquiry.
“We also need action now ahead of a possible second wave
this winter. We need to get to the bottom of what happened in
care homes so that lessons can be learned, and lives can be
saved. We cannot afford for the same mistakes to be made
again.”
Ends
Notes to editors:
-
Social care warnings ignored:
-
The leaked version of the report into Exercise Cygnus –
held in October 2016 on behalf of the Department of Health to
assess the UK’s preparedness for and response to a pandemic –
reveals that Cygnus and the preparatory (August 2016) Exercise
Cygnet raised the need for ‘further planning… in order to
operationalise current thoughts about how the social care
system might cope during a pandemic.’
“Exercise Cygnus examined the implications of a pandemic
influenza response on the social care system. This aspect of the
exercise was also examined during Exercise Cygnet. In general,
feedback from both exercises indicated that further planning was
required in order to operationalise current thoughts about how
the social care system might cope during a pandemic.”
Exercise Cygnus Report, 2017, P24
https://www.scribd.com/document/460161101/Cygnus-Redacted-Annex-01scribd-Redactedv3#download&from_embed
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It has now been reported that in 2018 Adass said
frontline care workers would need advice on “controlling
cross-infection” and wanted a system of volunteers to help
overwhelmed care homes. They also called for new guidance on
increasing stocks of PPE, warning ‘demand… could rapidly
outstrip supply.’ But the social care leaders were ‘not aware’
if government acted on their recommendations.
Adass spokesperson: “We are not aware of whether government
departments picked up on any of the recommendations set
out.”
The Guardian, 13 May 2020
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/may/13/ministers-were-warned-two-years-ago-of-care-homes-exposure-to-pandemics
-
This lack of engagement was confirmed by Adass president
James Bullion in comments to File on 4.
“Adass weren’t directly involved in Operation Cygnus itself
and we hadn’t seen the report itself until this week. We were, at
the end of 2017, asked to produce a range of reports on a guide
for how directors of adult social services would work in the
event of a flu pandemic. We submitted four reports, I think in
the spring of 2018. In total over 100 recommendations that we
made into government about how to operate but because we weren’t
involved in the actual report itself its quite hard for us to
judge numerically how many of our recommendations were accepted
or not.”
File on 4, BBC Radio 4, 19 May 2020
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000j81c
-
Martin Green, the chief executive of Care England, said
concerns raised by the exercise were not addressed by
government with his members.
“It beggars belief. This is a report that made some really
clear recommendations that haven’t been implemented. If they had
put in place a response to every one, we would have been in a
much better place at the start of this pandemic.”
The Guardian, 7 May 2020,
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/07/revealed-the-secret-report-that-gave-ministers-warning-of-care-home-coronavirus-crisis
-
During the simulated COBR meetings of Exercise Cygnus,
there was ‘little attention paid’ to the care sector.
“It is understood that the social care sector is currently
under significant pressure during business as usual. There was
little attention paid to the sector during COBR meetings or the
discussions that fed into those meetings for decisions to be
made. Any extra pressure on the social care sector could be very
challenging.”
Exercise Cygnus Report, 2017, P25
https://www.scribd.com/document/460161101/Cygnus-Redacted-Annex-01scribd-Redactedv3#download&from_embed
