Boris Johnson was today accused of being a coward after he blamed care homes for failing to look after their residents properly during the coronavirus pandemic.
Triggering a blame game over the care home scandal which has seen nearly 30,000 elderly Britons die from Covid-19, the Prime Minister said ‘too many’ facilities ignored proper safety procedures.
But care bosses hit back at his claims, saying his comments were ‘neither accurate nor welcome’ as tensions over the social care crisis continue to simmer.
Mark Adams, chief executive of social care charity Community Integrated Care, said he was ‘unbelievably disappointed’ by Mr Johnson’s remarks and called them ‘clumsy’ and ‘cowardly’.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘To be honest with you, if this is genuinely his view, I think we’re almost entering a kafkaesque alternative reality, where the government sets the rules, we follow them, they don’t like the results, they then deny setting the rules and blame the people that were trying to do their best.’
Piers Morgan also attacked the PM for his ‘disgusting’ claim, saying: ‘I can’t even look at him anymore.’ Labour MP David Lammy said it was ‘inexcusable’ to try and shift the blame, while an LBC presenter called it ‘bowel-shifting dishonesty’.
Boris Johnson claimed too many care home facilities had ignored proper safety procedures to combat the coronavirus, which prompted an angry dispute
Mark Adams, chief executive of social care charity Community Integrated Care, said he was ‘unbelievably disappointed’ by Mr Johnson’s remarks and called them ‘clumsy’ and ‘cowardly’
Speaking during a visit to Goole in Yorkshire, Mr Johnson said: ‘One of the things the crisis has shown is we need to think about how we organise our social care package better and how we make sure we look after people better who are in social care.
‘We discovered too many care homes didn’t really follow the procedures in the way that they could have, but we’re learning lessons the whole time.’
He was responding to remarks by NHS chief Sir Simon Stevens, who said the Covid-19 crisis had shone ‘a very harsh spotlight’ on the resilience of the sector and urged the Government to enact plans for reform within a year.
Mr Johnson last night accepted change is needed, saying: ‘Most important is to fund them properly.
‘But we’ll also be looking at ways to make sure the care sector long term is properly organised and supported.’
His comments sparked an immediate backlash. Mr Adams accused the government’s leadership of being an ‘absolute travesty’.
When asked to explain why he called Boris Johnson’s words ‘cowardly’, Mr Adams added: ‘Because you’ve got 1.6million social care workers who when most of us are locked away in our bunkers waiting out Covid-19, really trying to protect our family.
‘We’ve got these brave people on minimum wage, often with no sickness cover at all, going into work to protect our parents, our grandparents, our children, putting their own health and potentially their own lives at risk.
‘And then to get the most senior man in the country turning round and blaming them on what has been an absolute travesty of leadership from the Government, I just think it is appalling.’
He said: ‘I think what we’re getting is history re-written in front of us, when you could list pages and pages of Government failure which the system has had to cope with.
‘And to get a throwaway comment, almost glibly blaming the social care system and not holding your hand up for starting too late, doing the wrong things, making mistake after mistake, is just frankly unacceptable.’
The government has faced a barrage of criticism for failing to protect care homes from the virus, from a lack of testing to inadequate supplies of PPE.
Official policy for testing in care homes during the peak of the outbreak was to only swab a small sample in the home — until mass testing became available in April.
If positive cases were found, the home was assumed to have an outbreak and other residents with similar symptoms were classified as having coronavirus.
Ministers finally caved into pressure last week and announced staff and residents in care homes will regularly be tested for coronavirus.
Mr Adams added the care sector — which looks after around 400,000 Britons — had been ‘crying out’ for weekly testing for months.
When asked whether his staff were being tested enough, he said: ‘We didn’t test social care until the end of May. So us, like most social care operators, had our losses before we started having any testing at all.
‘Yes, the testing has now reached a point where most of our staff in care homes and most of the residents have been tested once.
‘But once is absolutely useless because if you get tested and then get on the bus back home and pick up the virus on the bus, within a week you’re potentially asymptomatic and infectious.
‘We have been crying out for weekly or ideally twice-weekly testing for months and we’ve only just got that commitment – it is a question of the horse bolting and shutting the stable door.’
A National Audit Office report last month revealed ministers had ignored warnings to stockpile essential PPE in June 2019.
Office for National Statistics figures released today revealed 1,300 care home residents passed away on April 12, the darkest day in the pandemic for the sector
Health chiefs only supplied a fifth of the gowns, a third of the eye protectors and half of the aprons that government advisers recommended.
Care home bosses were still struggling to source PPE in May, well after the brunt of the pandemic had passed.
One provider even added a £6.47-a-day surcharge on top of £4,000 monthly fees to pay for masks, gowns and gloves for staff.
And one home in Wales was forced to warn in April that staff may have to resort to wearing bin bags unless they could urgently source PPE.
The report also claimed around 25,000 hospital patients were discharged into care homes during the peak of the pandemic without all being tested for Covid-19.
Critics said the move, ordered to free up beds for an anticipated surge in seriously ill virus patients, was ‘extraordinary’ and showed care homes were an ‘afterthought’.
Mr Johnson’s comments sparked immediate backlash last night, with Vic Rayner, of the National Care Forum, rejecting the criticism and urging the Prime Minister to start ‘turning the dial up on reform and down on blame’.
She added: ‘Mr Johnson’s comments in relation to care homes’ following of procedures are neither accurate nor welcome.
The Independent Care Group’s chairman Mike Padgham said: ‘We should not be getting into the blame game and it is wrong to criticise care and nursing homes at this time.’
He added: ‘Care providers may not have got everything perfect but neither has the Government.
‘For much of this pandemic, providers were operating in the dark over what they ought to do and with one arm behind their backs in terms of the support they were given. In those circumstances, they have worked miracles.’
No 10 last night tried to calm the row, saying Mr Johnson had not been criticising care homes but had merely been highlighting the difficulties they faced.
‘Throughout this crisis care homes have done a brilliant job under very difficult circumstances,’ a spokesman said.
‘The PM was pointing out that nobody knew what the correct procedures were because the extent of asymptomatic transmission was not known at the time.’
It comes after damning figures last week revealed a care home resident died every minute in England and Wales at the peak of the Covid-19 crisis in mid-April.
Office for National Statistics data showed 1,300 care home residents passed away on April 12, the darkest day in the pandemic for the sector.
A total of 495 of the deaths were confirmed as Covid-19 following a positive test but the virus was likely to blame for hundreds more.
Very few care home residents were swabbed for the infection at the time because tests were reserved for the sickest hospital patients and NHS workers.