Community responds to UK Covid-19 Inquiry Recommendations

Community Union has welcomed recommendations from the UK Covid-19 Inquiry to improve adult social care.

In her report examining the impact of the pandemic on the adult social care sector in
England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, Chair of the Inquiry, Baroness (Heather) Hallett DBE, said the claim that “a protective ring” had been put in place around care homes “right from the start” of the Covid-19 outbreak was unfounded.

Her recommendations to Government include:

• Improving arrangements for pandemic planning to ensure clearer structures, roles
  and responsibilities.
• Ensuring better planning for separating (isolating) care home residents with potential infections,
  including those discharged from hospitals.
• Implementing financial support schemes that are ready to be rolled out to support
  adult social care staff to self-isolate/limit staff movement.
• Publishing guidance on how limiting visiting will be decided upon in a future
  pandemic.
• Maintaining inspection and oversight by developing protocols to enable inspections
  to continue, including, where possible, on-site inspections.
• Improving collection of data about deaths of workers in the adult social care sector.
• Establishing mandatory end-of-life training for relevant health and social care workers.
• Recognising and supporting the social care workforce in England through the
  introduction of a voluntary register.

A Community Union spokesperson said:

“Our members in adult social care were on the frontline when Covid-19 swept the country, and the consequences of poor Government decision-making are still being felt today.

“The Covid Inquiry paints a damning picture. Many care workers were left without the PPE they desperately needed, with some forced to rely on waterproof festival ponchos and homemade protective equipment made from bin bags, fabric and bed linen. These failures put workers and those they cared for at unnecessary risk.

“We welcome Baroness Hallett’s recommendations for the care sector, but they must be viewed as the starting point, not the end point, of reform. To meet future challenges, adult social care requires sustained investment and meaningful change.

“Care workers must never again be treated as an afterthought during a national emergency. This current Government must learn from the mistakes of the pandemic, implement the Inquiry’s recommendations in full and deliver the reforms needed to ensure history does not repeat itself.”