Andrew Marr 'sickened' by care home scandal as he hears accounts from Covid bereaved

27 April 2022, 18:47 | Updated: 27 April 2022, 18:48

Andrew Marr has called the policy of discharging patients from hospital to care homes during in the pandemic "sickening", after the High Court ruled the Government acted unlawfully.

In a ruling on Wednesday, Lord Justice Bean and Mr Justice Garnham concluded that policies contained in documents released in March and early April 2020 were unlawful because they failed to take into account the risk to elderly and vulnerable residents from non-symptomatic transmission of the virus.

Talking about the ruling during Tonight with Andrew Marr, the presenter said: "I don't care that all of this happened two years ago, I don't care that we now have a different ministerial team. This is sickening."

Read more: Govt failed to protect care home residents from Covid when sending patients from hospital

'This is sickening!': Andrew Marr reacts to High Court ruling

Adding: "Neither Matt Hancock, who says he was not given the vital advice, not the new health secretary Sajid Javid, nor the officials responsible for the advice, were prepared to come on and answer questions about it tonight."

Guest on the show, Charlie Williams, whose father passed away in a care home in April 2020, told Andrew:" My father was living quite happily in his care home for a number of years and obviously the pandemic struck. I was notified in April 2020, my fathers health had deteriorated all of a sudden, and they told me he had suspected Covid-19.

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"Now I immediately asked for him to be tested immediately, they constantly told me they had no facilities for testing and this went on for several days. I asked if anyone there had covid-19, they told me no, I said has anyone died of covid-19, they told me no."

It was later revealed to Mr Williams that a total of 22 patients had died from Covid at his father's care home, making up around a quarter of residents.

Read more: Vulnerable people still being sent to care homes without Covid tests, claims carer

Andrew Marr hears from Chief Executive of Care England Professor Martin Green

He went on: "I thought my father would have been much safer in the care home, I was more concerned about my mother who was out here with myself.

"The care workers themselves have told me they were forced to admit Covid positive patients from the local hospital into my fathers care home."

Asked how he felt about former Health Secretary Matt Hancock claiming there was a "protective ring" around care homes during the pandemic, he replied: "The first time Matt Hancock uttered those words I was totally disgusted because you couldn't be further from the truth. And up to this day he still wants to stand by those words and I find it despicable.

He said today's ruling was a "Its a massive step forward" for the member of the Covid-19 Bereaved Families group.

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'I want the Prime Minister and Matt Hancock to resign.'

High Court judges ruled on Wednesday that despite there being "growing awareness" of the risk of asymptomatic transmission throughout March 2020, there was no evidence that then health secretary Matt Hancock addressed the issue of the risk to care home residents of such transmission.

The ruling said: "In our judgment, this was not a binary question, a choice between on the one hand doing nothing at all, and on the other hand requiring all newly admitted residents to be quarantined.

"The document could, for example, have said that where an asymptomatic patient, other than one who has tested negative, is admitted to a care home, he or she should, so far as practicable, be kept apart from other residents for up to 14 days.

"Since there is no evidence that this question was considered by the Secretary of State, or that he was asked to consider it, it is not an example of a political judgment on a finely balanced issue.

"Nor is it a point on which any of the expert committees had advised that no guidance was required.

"The drafters of the documents of March 17 and April 2 simply failed to take into account the highly relevant consideration of the risk to elderly and vulnerable residents from asymptomatic transmission."