Key Summary
- There were more than 43,000 recorded deaths involving Covid-19 in care homes between March 2020 and July 2022.
- Care home residents were left feeling isolated as visiting restrictions cut them off from loved ones.
- Care home workers put their own lives at risk due to severe shortages of personal protective equipment.
The Chair of the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, Baroness (Heather) Hallett, has said that not much was done to protect people in care settings when the virus spread rapidly.
The UK Covid-19 Inquiry's sixth report, ‘Care Sector’ (Module 6), published on 20 October 2026, stated that there were more than 43,000 recorded deaths involving Covid-19 in care homes between March 2020 and July 2022.
"A lack of proper planning, plus failures to implement lessons from earlier pandemic planning exercises, meant the UK government and devolved administrations took critical decisions in the early weeks without the information they needed. Action to protect carers and care users came too late, with devastating consequences."
The report concluded that while the UK government and devolved administrations knew, prior to the pandemic, of the extreme vulnerability of care home residents to respiratory viruses, care homes "received insufficient protection at the time they most needed it".
The claim that “a protective ring” had been put in place around care homes “right from the start” of the Covid-19 outbreak was unfounded, it added.
Former health secretary Matt Hancock had said on May 15, 2020, that his government had put a protective ring around care homes.
“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," Baroness Hallett said.
The report said that not enough was done to protect people in care settings between March and mid-April 2020.
"The decision to speed up the discharge of patients from hospitals into care homes was necessary to free up hospital beds. But the decision to do so was taken in March 2020 when there was not enough testing capacity to know patients’ Covid-19 status."
At the time, isolating discharged patients inside care settings was one of the few effective protections available. Yet, in March 2020, England, Wales and Northern Ireland did not initially advise this, a failure the Inquiry calls “a significant omission”.
Cut off from loved ones
The report said that when the deadly virus spread rapidly, care home residents were left feeling isolated, abandoned and alone as visiting restrictions cut them off from loved ones, in some cases for months.
Some people were not allowed to be with dying friends or relatives in their final moments, leaving bereaved people grief-stricken. They could not help their loved ones with daily tasks such as eating, drinking and washing.
Baroness Hallett said: “The profound isolation and sense of abandonment felt by residents as a result of the visiting restrictions resulted in immense emotional harm. Most distressingly, some people were not permitted to be with their dying loved ones. Many remain wracked by a guilt that they do not deserve to carry.”
The report said the severity and duration of these restrictions caused “profound and enduring effects” inside care homes, particularly for those with cognitive conditions such as dementia.
Care home workers' plight
The pandemic exposed the underlying fragility of the adult social care workforce, numbering around 1.5 million. Many put their own lives at risk while providing care without any adequate protection.
Severe shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) meant that some care workers were left having to wear waterproof ponchos from festivals, painters’ overalls, or home-made PPE made from fabric, bin bags and bed linen.
The report describes this as “wholly unacceptable”, finding that care workers were left “without the protection they needed”.
It concluded that while PPE shortages were a global problem, better planning could have ensured a much better supply from the outset.
Many care workers suffered burnout, and some left the profession entirely. Changes to sick pay were introduced in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland between March and May 2020, but not in Wales until November 2020, the report added.
The country’s 5.8 million unpaid carers were also heavily relied upon, providing complex care for longer hours with little or no respite.
The inquiry said that support for unpaid carers came too late and that for too long the adult social care sector as a whole has been "undervalued and under-recognised".
Many care workers suffered burnout. Some left the profession entirely. Changes to sick pay were introduced in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland between March and May 2020, but not in Wales until November 2020.
The Inquiry concludes that support for unpaid carers came too late and that for too long the adult social care sector as a whole has been undervalued and under-recognised.
Key recommendations
The Chair makes eight key recommendations to ensure the adult social care sector is better protected and better equipped to respond to the next pandemic, including:
- Improving arrangements for pandemic planning to ensure clearer structures, roles and responsibilities.
- Better planning for the safe isolation of care home residents.
- Implementing financial support schemes ready to be rolled out to support adult social care staff to self-isolate or to limit staff movement.
- Publishing guidance on visiting restrictions.
- Maintaining inspection and oversight by developing protocols to enable inspections to continue, including, where possible, on-site inspections.
- Improving the collection of data about deaths in the adult social care sector.
- Establishing mandatory end-of-life care training for relevant health and social care workers.
- Introducing a voluntary register for the social care workforce in England, recognising and supporting a workforce that already benefits from such registers in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
This is the sixth part of the inquiry’s 10 investigations, and Module 7 will be published on 19 November 2026.
It will look at the approach to testing, tracing and isolation adopted during the pandemic and make recommendations.
