What next after the High Court’s Covid care home ruling?
Government is ‘staring down the barrel of potentially very costly claims’ after victory for bereaved relatives
Hospital patients were unlawfully sent to care homes during the Covid pandemic despite more than 20 warnings of asymptomatic Covid-19 transmission, the High Court has said.
The ruling has led to renewed calls for former health secretary Matt Hancock to apologise for his actions and an expert has predicted that the government could now be facing “very costly” legal claims.
The ruling
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
A 75-page High Court ruling found that the government acted unlawfully when it sent untested patients into care homes in England at the start of the pandemic.
Public Health England advised ministers as early as March 2020 against allowing hospital patients who may have had Covid-19 but who did not have symptoms to be transferred from hospitals to care homes, reported the i news site.
Indeed, ruled Lord Justice Bean and Mr Justice Garnham, there were more than 20 occasions, between late January and the middle of March 2020, when scientific advisers and academic papers warned it was likely that Covid could be passed on without symptoms.
The judges said it was “apparent” that ministers were “alive to the possibility of pre-symptomatic infection and transmission”.
This “undermines” claims made yesterday by Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock, the health secretary at the time, that they did not know that Covid-19 could be transmitted by people without symptoms, said i news.
What happens next?
The ruling is a victory for bereaved families, who said care home residents were “thrown to the wolves” during the pandemic, The Guardian reported. Around 12,500 care home residents died during the early weeks of the crisis, the paper said.
It is thought that yesterday’s ruling could help them bring compensation claims. Michelle Penn, from law firm BLM, told The Guardian: “Should any care home operators themselves face personal injury claims during this period, it’s likely they will seek contribution from the government to cover these costs.” Therefore, she added, “the government is now staring down the barrel of potentially very costly claims”.
The Telegraph said that the ruling has “considerable political and legal implications” and means Hancock “cannot now hide behind officials” any longer.
For grieving families, yesterday’s judgment is not the end of the matter but a springboard. “My view is that this government is guilty of gross negligence and the manslaughter of my father,” wrote Charlie Williams, whose father Rex died in a Coventry care home, for The Guardian.
He added that “the judgment gives me a little hope in terms of the progress we’re making in holding this government to account”.
Dr Cathy Gardner, whose father died in a care home during the pandemic, is calling on Hancock to apologise, reported The Times.
She said it is now “clear” that his claim that the government threw a protective ring around care homes “was nothing more than a despicable lie, of which he ought to be ashamed and for which he ought to apologise”.
However, a spokesman for Hancock insisted the case “comprehensively clears ministers of any wrongdoing and finds Mr Hancock acted reasonably on all counts”.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Chas Newkey-Burden has been part of The Week Digital team for more than a decade and a journalist for 25 years, starting out on the irreverent football weekly 90 Minutes, before moving to lifestyle magazines Loaded and Attitude. He was a columnist for The Big Issue and landed a world exclusive with David Beckham that became the weekly magazine’s bestselling issue. He now writes regularly for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Metro, FourFourTwo and the i new site. He is also the author of a number of non-fiction books.
-
The murky role of military contractors in war
The Explainer A civil case against US company has revived debate over the increasing use of private security firms in military operations
By Richard Windsor, The Week UK Published
-
The week's best photos
In Pictures Playful goslings, an exploding snowman, and more
By Anahi Valenzuela, The Week US Published
-
What is rock flour and how can it help to fight climate change?
The Explainer Glacier dust to the rescue
By Devika Rao, The Week US Published
-
Covid four years on: have we got over the pandemic?
Today's Big Question Brits suffering from both lockdown nostalgia and collective trauma that refuses to go away
By Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week UK Published
-
How happy is Finland really?
Today's Big Question Nordic nation tops global happiness survey for seventh year in a row with 'focus on contentment over joy'
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
The hollow classroom
Opinion Remote school let kids down. It will take much more than extra tutoring for kids to recover.
By Mark Gimein Published
-
Excess screen time is making children only see what is in front of them
Under the radar The future is looking blurry. And very nearsighted.
By Devika Rao, The Week US Published
-
Covid-19: what to know about UK's new Juno and Pirola variants
in depth Rapidly spreading new JN.1 strain is 'yet another reminder that the pandemic is far from over'
By Arion McNicoll, The Week UK Published
-
Does declining birth rate spell doom for Britain?
Today's Big Question Ageing population puts pressure on welfare state, economy and fabric of society, while fertility is rising on populist agendas
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Long-term respiratory illness is here to stay
The Explainer Covid is not the only disease with a long version
By Devika Rao, The Week US Published
-
Covid inquiry: the most important questions for Boris Johnson
Talking Point Former PM has faced weeks of heavy criticism from former colleagues at the public hearing
By The Week Staff Published