Hancock defends moving hospital patients to care homes during Covid pandemic | Covid inquiry

The emptying of patients who did not hide from hospitals to home care homes during the retired epidemic was “the least worse decision”, the former Minister of Health Hancock died She told a general investigation.

In his testimony to UK Covid-19 Investigation On Wednesday, Hancock defended the decision – which was later Illegal ruling in the Supreme Court ruling – Let’s transfer hospital patients to care homes during the first weeks of the epidemic to free space.

He said: “No one has yet provided me with an alternative available at the time that would have saved more lives.” “I still can’t see a decision that was less worse. None of the options were good. This was the least decision that could be made at that time. While I wish there was a better option, I still could not find a decision.

“The possibility of things is worse if people remain in the hospital very high.”

Nicolas Brooke, a lawyer who represents more than 7,000 people from the Kofid -19 captive for justice in the United Kingdom, said that Hancock’s words were “an insult to the memory of everyone who died.”

She said at the time that many care homes did not have the ability to isolate the people who would be emptied from the hospital and that Kovid was air -ranked. ” “It is ridiculously and insulting that he says they tried to throw a protective episode about the care homes when his ministry’s policies have caused the spread of Covid like wildfire among the most vulnerable community loved ones.”

Hancock said the policy of discharge was a “official government decision”, but it was “paid” by that time. NHS CEO Simon Stevens. He also said that although he did not make the decision himself, he took responsibility for it.

“Mr. Hancock claims that the decision to remove people in sponsorship was led by Simon Stevens, CEO of NHS, yet the investigation does not call him. We call for this decision to review urgently,” Brock said.

Hancock was providing evidence as part of the sixth unit of the investigation, specifically focusing on the care sector.

Earlier this week, he heard that one of the senior civilian employees said that there had been “slaughtering generations within care homes” in written evidence to the investigation.

Nearly 46,000 residents of the Care House with Kovid died in England and Wales between March 2020 and January 2022, and many of them are in The first weeks of the epidemic.

The decision to exit quickly from hospital patients to care for a role for family liberation, when testing and insulation facilities were not widely available, was severely criticized for a rapid spread of the disease in care homes.

In 2022, the Supreme Court said that the policy of not isolating hospital patients who were emptied in the first weeks of the epidemic without a test was “irrational”.

Tuesday The owner of a house and a manager who provides evidence She said that she refused to allow hospital patients non -laboratories to enter the elderly care house, and she was told that she would be informed of the care inspectorate to ban the bed.

Hancock said that the isolation of patients who were discharged was not clinically recommended at the time, but it should have been “too late.”

When asked if there were enough employees to care for the patients who were empty, amid evidence of a wide shortage of caregivers, Hancock said: “We have known that people would do what they need to do.”

He was also criticized for his allegations that a “preventive episode” had been placed around the sponsorship, and previously admitted to the investigation that it was not a “uninterrupted circle.”

The care sector unit is expected to continue to investigate until the end of July.