Loved ones with an ‘essential carer’ role should have been allowed to enter care homes much earlier in the coronavirus pandemic, the official Covid inquiry has found.

Baroness Heather Hallett’s latest report sets out the devastating consequences of barring family members and friends from visiting care home residents.

It says the ‘profound isolation and sense of abandonment felt by residents’ resulted in ‘immense emotional harm’.

Many of those who were blocked from visiting their dying loved ones, meanwhile, ‘remain wracked by a guilt that they do not deserve to carry’, Baroness Hallett writes.

The report acknowledges that care home providers and policy-makers ‘had little choice’ to impose restrictions when the pandemic began, as ‘protection of life was paramount’.

However, it highlights that by September 2020, there was no ‘strong evidence’ that visitors posed a particularly high risk of transmission of Covid.

It says: ‘Research indicated that the risk presented by loneliness and isolation to residents was ‘likely an order of magnitude higher’ than that posed by the risk of infection.’

However, it said the role of essential carers – a ‘specified relative, family member or friend’ who visits ‘in order to perform an enhanced caring role’ – should have been recognised sooner.

Such a move ‘may have significantly reduced the harm caused by isolation’, the report says.

Baroness Hallett said: ‘There was a significant decline in the health and wellbeing of residents, especially those with cognitive conditions like dementia.

‘The concept of designated visitors and essential care partners was not introduced until the summer of 2020 – a delay of several vital months.’

It recommends other administrations around the UK follow the Scottish Government in introducing a version of Anne’s Law, which identifies an essential care supporter for every care home resident.

The Scottish legislation is named for Anne Duke, a care home resident who died in 2021. Her daughter Natasha Hamilton launched a successful petition calling for a change in the law.

Baroness Hallett said the protection of the adult social care sector appeared to be ‘something of an afterthought’ as governments focused on protecting the NHS.

She dismissed claims from Covid-era Health Secretary Matt Hancock that there was a ‘protective ring’ around care homes ‘right from the start’.

On the contrary, she said that ‘a continuing lack of significant action taken to protect care homes across the UK lasted until mid-April 2020’.

Across all four nations of the UK, Covid-19 was the second leading cause of death in care homes in 2020. More than 43,000 deaths involving Covid-19 were recorded in care homes between March 2020 and July 2022.

The report published today sets out the findings of the sixth of 10 modules exploring different aspects of the UK’s response to the Covid pandemic.

It includes eight headline recommendations for changes that ‘must be acted upon now before the next pandemic strikes’.

They include better planning for keeping care home residents with potential infections separate from others at risk, including those who have been discharged from hospital.

The report also recommends mandatory end-of-life training for care workers, as a lack of requisite skills during the pandemic ‘resulted in sensitive discussions occurring in a hurried manner or not at all’.

Baroness Hallett said: ‘At the critical early stages of the pandemic, not enough was done to protect those living and working in care homes.

‘The mantra at the time of “protecting the NHS” sometimes came at the expense of the users and providers of care. The adult social care sector as a whole appeared to be something of an afterthought.’

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