Susie Forrest
Health producer, BBC Scotland

Image source, Getty Images

Baroness Hallett highlights the introduction of Anne's Law in Scotland as a positive step, and recommends that the UK and Welsh governments and Northern Ireland Executive should consider similar regulations or guidance.

Two years after the first pandemic lockdown, the law changed in Scotland to allow residents to choose a relative or friend who could visit for essential care during an outbreak.

It was named after Anne Duke who was cut off from her family for months while battling early-onset dementia, and died in November 2021, aged 63.

The law recognises that stopping visits often causes serious harm to a resident’s health or wellbeing, and says each individual’s needs and circumstances must be taken into account.

Baroness Hallett says this has ensured that visits can only be suspended if it's essential to prevent a risk to life, health or wellbeing, including during any future pandemic, and that visiting must be allowed to continue at the end of life.

Eamonn O’Brien, chair of the Local Government Association (LGA), says it is "essential" the care sector is adequately funded following today's Covid inquiry report.

He adds it is "absolutely vital" that nobody is discharged into care settings "where clinically vulnerable people live" without robust guidance.

The findings, O'Brien says, offer an "important opportunity to ensure lessons are learned".

He says the experience of care providers, the NHS and local partners "must be at the heart of planning for any future pandemic" along with "those with lived experience of care".

Care workers "paid a big price" for their courage and commitment during the pandemic, the director of charity for older people Age UK has said.

Caroline Abrahams, who was a witness for the Covid inquiry in 2025, tells BBC News the government and NHS were "playing catch up" during the pandemic against a background where social care was a "second-class citizen".

"If you go into a pandemic and then try and do your planning, it's just too late," she says.

Abrahams says the government is "committed to creating a national care service", adding how Baroness Casey responds to today's findings in her review of adult social care is "really the key".

Image source, PA Media

Andy Burnham says the government is "committed to learning the lessons" from today's report and has pledged to use the findings to develop an "action plan" in case of a future pandemic.

The prime minister says he recognises the "pain and suffering caused by the pandemic" alongside the lasting impact it continues to have on many people, adding he is "acutely aware" of the experiences of people receiving and providing care during the pandemic.

He also pays tribute to family and friends who provided support and the professionalism shown by staff and volunteers working in adult social care.

"We will use these findings to continue development of our Adult Social Care Pandemic Action Plan," he says.

He says his vision for his previously announced national care service will be "person-centred, highly integrated with health services and preventative in its character".

The government would be "foolhardy" not to heed every recommendation and warning given by today's report, the chair of the health and social care select committee has said.

Layla Moran MP says there was a "whole cascade of poor decisions" taken at the time of the pandemic.

She tells BBC News that the NHS and social care system need to be put on an equal footing: "That's the thing that we need to put right with the right people in charge."

The MP says social care is at the top of the agenda for her committee members and she wants the government to come up with a plan sooner.

She adds the focus of Prime Minister Andy Burnham is on social care.

"Unless we can come round the table and decide how it's all going to be paid for, yet again it's not going to happen and that is not acceptable. We cannot have this situation any more."

Image source, Getty Images

While reaction to the report continues to come in, here is a quick recap of the shortages and policy decisions that saw the virus spread in care settings:

• Government action to protect care home residents and workers came too late, appearing as an afterthought, and the bandied claim of a "protective ring" was "unfounded"
• There was a shortage of PPE with carers often having to resort to homemade protection, such as painting overalls and rain ponchos and bin bags, which was "wholly unacceptable"
• Hospital patients were being discharged to care homes without being tested for Covid-19 - this wasn't given as a recommendation in guidance which the report says was "a significant omission"
• Discussions on orders against resuscitation, known as DNACPRs, "were rushed or non-existent", with doctors imposing blanket orders on care home residents
• Barring people from visiting loved ones in care settings resulted in isolation and "immense emotional harm"
• Better planning and training was and is needed so that the country is better placed should another pandemic hit
• The report also included eight recommendations - read those here

Andrew Rogers
BBC Newsbeat

Image source, Phoenix

Phoenix Green, 24, started working as a care assistant during the pandemic when she was 18.

One of the things the report raised was problems with isolation and people in care homes not being allowed to have visits from friends or family.

Reacting to the report's release, she says: "I think with these vulnerable people, family members should have been able to visit, obviously with limitations.

"It was a shame to separate them from their families so much, it’s very important for people with dementia that they do stay in contact with their family."

Some have questioned the cost and length of the Covid Inquiry but Phoenix thinks it was "definitely worth" looking into the care sector.

"We needed a lot more support at the time with what we were going through," she says. "I am shocked it’s happened so late but it needed to be looked into so this doesn’t happen again."

Ahead of the report, she told Newsbeat that carers "didn’t know what you were going to be walking into".

“A lot of care companies didn’t really disclose whether the clients had Covid or not, you were walking into houses full of PPE not knowing what you were going to be bringing home.

“It was quite scary as an 18 and 19 year old going through this, you didn’t really know what to expect, it was terrifying really.”

Image source, Downing Street

Speaking in May 2020, in the first few months of the pandemic, former health secretary Matt Hancock announced at a Covid briefing that "right from the start, we've tried to throw a protective ring around our care homes".

He defended this claim while speaking to the Covid Inquiry in 2025, stating that he "had to act with the tools that I had and that's what I did".

Hancock was responsible for care services in England. There were more than 43,000 recorded deaths involving Covid in care homes across the UK between March 2020 and July 2022.

During the inquiry, Nicola Brook, a lawyer representing bereaved families, told the ex-health secretary it was "frankly ridiculous and insulting that he says they tried to throw a protective ring around care homes when his department's policies caused Covid to spread like wildfire".

Hancock acknowledged the decision to discharge patients from hospitals into care homes when testing was not available was an "incredibly contentious issue".

However, he described it as the "the least worst solution" available at the time.

Today, the report said claims of a protective ring were "unfounded".

The national officer of the GMB says carers from the union were "left vulnerable and terribly exposed" during the pandemic which saw "care homes turned into morgues".

Natalie Grayson says the recommendations from today's report "fall short of the root and branch reform our care sector needs" but adds this was always outside of the remit of the inquiry.

She praises the report for recognising the "incredible contribution" care staff made in trying to keep the most vulnerable members of society alive, and for the respect they treated them with in their final hours.

Grayson adds: "We look forward to working with the government to enact the recommendations that have been made."

Joe McFadden
Health reporter

The inquiry has made eight key recommendations about how to better protect the adult social care sector during an outbreak.

The chair expects the government to implement these now so the sector is more prepared in the event of another pandemic. They are:

1. Improving arrangements for pandemic planning to ensure clearer structure, roles and responsibilities
2. Better planning for the safe isolation of care home residents
3. Implementing financial support schemes to support adult social care staff to self-isolate or to limit staff movement
4. Publishing guidance on visiting restrictions
5. Maintaining inspection and oversight to enable inspections to continue
6. Improving the collection of data about deaths in the adult social care sector
7. Establishing mandatory end-of-life care training for health and social care workers
8. Introducing a voluntary register for the social care workforce in England - Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland already have such registers in place

Image source, PA Media

Health Secretary Yvette Cooper says the government will provide a "full response" to the report’s recommendations "in due course".

Speaking in the Commons, Cooper says she agrees with the inquiry's chair, Baroness Hallett, that social care has been "undervalued and under-recognised" for too long.

“My thoughts are with all those who lost loved ones in the pandemic, and especially those who endured the immense distress and harm of visiting restrictions in care homes, which meant they could not be with loved ones even as they died," she adds.

She says the report found that the social care sector was "insufficiently prepared for a pandemic" and that it was "too often treated as an afterthought" compared to the NHS.

“We will provide a full response to the report’s recommendations in due course."

Continuing to speak after the release of today's report, Jean Adamson says she was only able to visit her father, Aldrick, through his care home window when he had covid before he died on 15 April 2020.

She says: "Like so many thousands, he died alone. Isolated, a victim of covid but also a victim of government negligence."

The campaigner says the social care system is "too difficult for politicians to reform" and "too easy to ignore".

She says reforms to the social care system cannot wait and it is "still not built for purpose".

"We need urgent action to prevent another tragedy like this from ever happening again."

Today's report is a "devastating account of one of the darkest episodes in our country's history", a campaigner for the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice pressure group has said.

Jean Adamson says the report shows the government knew the care sector was "extremely vulnerable" to a pandemic but it still failed to act until it was "too late".

She says it shows that former health secretary Matt Hancock's claim of throwing a protective ring around care homes was a "cruel lie".

The campaigner says members of the government made the decision to discharge hospital patients into care homes despite having "no medical expertise".

"[They] made a decision that became a death sentence for our family members," she adds.

The Scottish government says it will take the "necessary time" to "fully and carefully consider" the Covid inquiry's findings.

"We recognise the loss, hurt and suffering experienced by people, particularly among those who relied on, delivered or supported adult social care services during an exceptionally challenging period," it says in a statement.

It adds that it acknowledges the "significant impact of the pandemic" on those who rely on care, their families and the "many unpaid carers who provided essential care".

"Throughout the pandemic, the Scottish Government’s overriding objective was to protect people and minimise loss of life," it adds.

Image source, Getty Images

Barring families and loved ones from visiting people in care homes had "far reaching and devastating consequences", chair inquiry Baroness Hallett continues.

The visits provide "essential human contact, routine, and stability," she explains, adding that "profound isolation" and abandonment felt by residents caused "immense emotional harm".

"Most distressingly, some people were not permitted to be with their dying loved ones," she adds.

On DNACPR notices, which are orders to not resuscitate someone, Hallett says here were "concerns these notices were improperly imposed on groups of people" such as those that are older or had learning disabilities.

She says the discussions on DNACPRs were "too often rushed or non-existent". A mandatory end of life training is needed, she adds.

On the workforce in care homes, Hallett says carers felt they were "overlooked and undervalued",

There are around 5.8m unpaid carers in UK - during pandemic they were "forced to provide complex care, for longer hours, with little or no respite".

Government actions to protect workers and users of adult social care "came too late", she adds.

This was the result of failing to plan, and underlines why the recommendations in the report "must be acted upon now before the next pandemic strikes," she concludes.

We'll bring you more from the report shortly - stick with us.

Image source, Covid Inquiry

Politicians had to make "undoubtedly difficult decisions," Hallett says, citing one of those as being discharging untested people from hospitals into care homes.

A lack of testing capacity meant medically fit patients were placed into care homes without knowing if they have Covid or not, she adds.

Those with symptoms were prioritised when tests were available, and it wasn't until mid-to-late April 2020 that all hospital patients sent to care homes were tested.

Hallett says the decision to discharge people was "necessary" but "given the known vulnerability of care home residence" guidance should've advised they would be isolated in care homes.

She says this "was perhaps the only, truly effective precaution available to care homes at that time".

On PPE, some workers had to wear homemade equipment, made from fabrics, bin bags and rain ponchos, which was "wholly unacceptable". Better planning could have ensured better supply, she says.

We can bring you more now from inquiry chair Baroness Hallett, who has been speaking after the release of the latest report.

A simulation exercise in 2016 tested the UK's response to a pandemic, chair Baroness Hallett says.

It found the social care sector was found to be a "particular concern", but Hallett says when Covid-19 emerged, recommendations had "not been completed", leaving ministers to make decisions "without the information they needed".

The "claim that a so-called protective ring had been thrown around care homes right from the start was unfounded", she continues. "Quite the opposite was true."

The adult social care sector "appeared to be something of an afterthought", she explains, while the virus spread rapidly.

Nick Triggle
Health correspondent

CPR when a person’s heart stops beating can be effective in fit and healthy individuals, but it can sometimes cause more harm than good for frail people or those living with life-limiting illnesses.

Doctors can decide not to resuscitate people - as can individuals themselves in advance.

But this should be done on an individual basis and the use of blanket do not resuscitate orders (DNACPR) is considered unlawful.

But the inquiry said it heard evidence of GPs imposing blanket DNACPRs on care home residents.

And it pointed to records showing a sharp increase in orders being put in place – they jumped from 16,800 to 26,500 in the first nine months of the pandemic.

This concern mirrors an earlier Care Quality Commission investigation which found evidence of unacceptable and inappropriate DNACPRs being put in place.

Alison Holt
Social affairs editor

We can bring you more now from the latest Covid inquiry report.

Between March and mid-April 2020, about 25,000 hospital patients in England were discharged from hospitals into care homes, according to figures from the National Audit Office.

The inquiry says this was necessary to free up much needed hospital beds as the virus took hold, but the lack of testing capacity meant patients were discharged without knowing whether or not they had Covid-19.

It says by the end of January 2020 there were clear signs suggesting the virus could be transmitted by people who showed no symptoms, but when patients were moved from hospitals to care homes initially there was no recommendation to isolate new arrivals.

The report calls this “a significant omission".

It also says the guidance to care workers to stay at a two-metres distance from the people they were caring for was “wholly unrealistic” given that most care happens at close quarters.

It concludes such advice provided little or no protection for the resident or the care worker.

Image source, Covid Inquiry

Baroness Hallett is speaking now. She says the Covid-19 pandemic "totally disrupted" the lives of people in care homes and had a "devastating impact".

The impact was "particularly acute" for those living in care homes, she says.

There was a "pressing and obvious need" to prevent the virus from entering the homes but it "did enter", she says, "with tragic consequences".

She says the report sets out how shortages and major policy decisions created an environment in care settings where the virus could "spread like wildfire".