DHSC/Sci Sel Comms report clear on care and disaster which unfolded. Says the sector suffered form a “lack of priority.” Compares UK approach unfavourably with Germany/Hong Kong. Says if govt had taken different approach “many 1000s of deaths [in homes] could have been avoided.”
Compare and contrast with Matt Hancock’s now infamous June 2020 claim that “*Right from the start*, we’ve tried to throw a protective ring around our care homes.”
Something always underwritten is what a big role lack of PPE had in care homes at the start and even quite a way into the pandemic- it’s rightly picked up on in the report. Again, compare and contrast with Mr Hancock’s claim that there was “no national shortage.”
Committee also notes that all of the problems could not and did not arise in Spring 2020. The fact that social care went into the crisis in such a feeble state inveitably made the problems worse; beyond some extra funding in three years time there isn’t much sense of much change.
Indeed as I said in my report yesterday, in many places things are getting worse, not better.
On the first lockdown at least though, it’s unfair that politicians alone get the scrutiny. The report is quietly scathing about the science and the scientists advising them (the same people, it must be said, as they go onto say, who helped score the wins over the vaccine).
Paragraph 93 being paramount in pinpointing the joint failure of politicians and the scientists advising them.
Committee raises the Q as to exactly why the British scientific establishment bought into the concept of lockdown fatigue without question despite their being no evidential basis for it. Made a report about this last year. No explanation has ever emerged.
There are some extraordinary paragraphs in this report. These stands out.
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