The UK government knew as early as September 2020 that its desire to free up hospital beds in the early stages of the pandemic had been “to the detriment” of care homes, openDemocracy can reveal.
It is one of a number of explosive admissions in a highly secret Covid “lessons learned” review document that was released tonight following a two-year transparency battle between the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and openDemocracy.
Ministers have publicly maintained they “threw a protective ring” around adult social care and “specifically sought to safeguard care homes” even after losing a high-profile court case last year over their failures. But behind closed doors, the department admitted the “operational response centre” (ORC) at the heart of the government’s Covid response had prioritised hospital capacity and failed to fully understand social care.
