Liz Kendall responds to Dominic Cummings calling the claim that the Government put a shield around care homes "complete nonsense"

“Mr Cummings’ comments have revealed what we knew all along – that the Government’s ‘protective shield’ around care homes during this pandemic did not exist.

“Over 30,000 care home residents have died of coronavirus during this pandemic. 25,000 elderly people were discharged from hospitals to care homes without any tests whatsoever, and frontline care workers were left without PPE.

“The Government was much too slow to act to protect residents and staff. As we emerge from this pandemic Ministers must put in place a plan to transform social care and ensure that care homes never again face a crisis of this scale.”

Ends

Notes to Editors

1. Asked about the Government’s care home policy at the select committee hearing this afternoon, Dominic Cummings said: Yes. We were told categorically in March that people would be tested before they went back to care homes, we only subsequently found out that that hadn’t happened. Now all the Government rhetoric was ‘we put a shield around care homes’ and blah blah blah. It was complete nonsense. Quite the opposite of putting a shield around them, we sent people with Covid back to the care homes.