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Government knowingly prioritised NHS over care homes, pandemic document shows
Assistant manager Claire Welford administers a coronavirus swab test on resident Harry Hall, 94, at the Eothen Homes care home in Whitley Bay, Tyneside, May 2020
THE government knew it had prioritised the NHS “to the detriment of care homes” early in the pandemic, official documents show.
Former health secretary Matt Hancock told Parliament it had thrown a “protective ring around care homes” in the first lockdown.
But an internal review by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), dated September 2020, revealed the “operational response centre” (ORC) at the heart of the government’s Covid response had prioritised hospital capacity at the cost of adult social care (ASC).
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