Ensuring lessons are learnt in the COVID-19 public inquiry
The Relatives & Residents Association (now Care Rights UK) have been granted Core Participant Status in the COVID-19 public inquiry. As core participants in the module on healthcare, we will be able to see investigation evidence, make statements at Inquiry hearings and suggest lines of questioning.
Alongside our fellow core participants, John’s Campaign and the Patients Association, we will be working to ensure that the experiences and voices of people relying on services are heard by the Inquiry.
The Inquiry will investigate the healthcare consequences of how the Government and the public responded to the pandemic. It will examine the capacity of healthcare systems to respond to a pandemic and how this evolved during the COVID-19 pandemic. It will consider the primary, secondary and tertiary healthcare sectors and services and people’s experience of healthcare during the pandemic. It will also examine healthcare-related inequalities (such as in relation to death rates and PPE). All three organisations are represented by law firm Leigh Day.
Throughout the pandemic, we campaigned for the rights of family members to visit and be involved in the care of their loved ones in care homes. We lobbied for changes to the Government guidance to care homes on visiting, in line with human rights laws. We supported John’s Campaign in its legal campaign to challenge the Government guidance, including two applications to the High Court, which were subsequently withdrawn after guidance was changed.
Helen Wildbore, director of Relatives and Residents Association (now Care Rights UK) said:
“Throughout the pandemic, people needing care were failed by the very systems designed to protect their human rights. Their health needs were neglected and their lives put at risk by policies which put the interests of institutions above the rights of people. We look forward to working with the inquiry to seek answers for these failings and learn lessons so that this never happens again.”