Update on Help hold the government to account for Covid-19 care home deaths *Title edited by GNHQ*

Thankfully my 92 year old mother doesn’t live in a care home, she lives in a sheltered apartment very near to our home. She has health conditions (heart disease) but it’s to be expected at her age. We managed to keep her safe throughout the crisis by ensuring she didn’t need to go out at all. We delivered her shopping to her front door, all wiped down first, organised delivery of her medicines etc although we weren’t going out ourselves at first, our son or daughter in law collected our Click and Collect shopping, which included Mum’s, and brought it to us. We phoned or FaceTimed her every day, and ordered things she needed online for her. Families can look after their elderly, even in a pandemic, but it depends upon the elderly person being able to wash and dress themselves, prepare simple meals, remember to take their medicines etc so I do think your comment rather unkind quizqueen.
Later, when we started to go out a bit, my husband went with mask, gloves, and hand gel, plus tools, and fixed her blind back up after it fell down, and we both rushed round when she failed to answer her phone, only to discover her happily chatting to my sister on her other phone. Otherwise we didn’t enter her apartment for twelve weeks till we could form a bubble with her.

I still don't understand what 'holding the government to account' actually would lead to. I understand the sorrow, rage and frustration families must feel but can only see this fundraising to mount this charge against the government as a way of venting feelings rather than being able to change anything.
It's obvious that if there was another similar pandemic the lessons learned from this one would be remembered and used including keeping our older people safer. I won't be contributing to this person's fund raising attempt.

No I won’t be contributing to the fund either, but I do hope that lessons have been learned. Leaving our oldest residents to their fate, as it seemed to me, was unnecessarily cruel in my opinion. I feel for all the families who have lost a loved one this way. The care home situation during this pandemic has been particularly shocking.

greeneyedgirl
You are correct. One of the many additional tasks that my daughter had to do in her role as a GP, was to telephone all her elderly patients and discuss with them whether or not they wanted to have be resuscitated in the event of their becoming seriously ill during the Covid19 pandemic. She enquired whether or not we had been contacted by our GP, we are 67 and 68, which makes me wonder at what age the does government regard people as dispensable. Thankfully we were not contacted about that and neither was my 92 year old mother.

Blair and his government were held to account over Iraq Jane10. It would mean they face a who did what when and can't get away with shifting the blame. Mind you, watching some on here already moving any blame either to the families or to the homes I imagine those in the government can do no wrong crowd don't want the drains to be lifted for fear of what lies underneath.

Not a good use of time or money best spent on trying to recover from all the various problems resulting from the pandemic.

I'm looking after my 95-year-old mother. I'm 70 and get tired and fed up. If there was a genuinely decent care home nearby I'd happily put my Mum there and visit her daily. Then I could live the rest of what life I have left without all the stress and constant demands which have taken over my life. People are living to be so old these days that their children are old themselves, as I am. NHS care should be cradle to grave with well-regulated, safe and free-of-charge care homes for those who need them. Yes the younger ones would have to pay more into the tax system but at least they could look forward to a comfortable old age.

I don't agree with you Jane10. These various problems mean that people died unnecessarily, and if the government does not acknowledge this, and more importantly learn from these mistakes, the same thing will happen again.

Analysis of global data shows that the proportion of residents dying in UK care homes was a third higher than in Ireland and Italy, about double that in France and Sweden, and 13 times higher than Germany. The only country that exceeded this grim toll in major European countries was Spain. (Analysis by LSE).

In real terms 3,500 died in Germany compared to more than 16,000 in UK.

I consider this scandalous. Elderly they may have been but these were people's loved ones, not just statistics.

jane10 I agree with you.
I would have thought the way to go would be to seek leave for a Judicial Review into the Government’s policy, rather than litigation, which is what is mentioned in the page.
My understanding is that there is going to be a Public Inquiry which would mean that a Judicial Review would be superfluous.

Not a good use of time or money best spent on trying to recover from all the various problems resulting from the pandemic.

Your opinion Jane10 and no doubt you don't want the fact that the number of fatalities was increased by the behaviour of the government to come to light but many do and if they are prepared to pay for the privilege of, hopefully, a judicial review, then who are you to tell them not too.

You really don't have to have an opinion on all the threads you know. If you don't agree your really only have to tell us once.

And you aren't the thread police. I persisted as no one was able to define an actual outcome for the proposed course of action. As janeainsworth said there's going to be a public inquiry so no need for this fund raising effort.

It's obvious that if there was another similar pandemic the lessons learned from this one would be remembered and used including keeping our older people safer

It's not in the slightest bit obvious, Jane10. Where is the plannning for a second wave, for rebuilding hospital capacity, even, to deal with the enormous waiting lists engendered by thus crisis, for recruiting the trained staff needed for our grossly understaffed hospitals? For dealing with a winter flu crisis, even?

No sign. Cummings has moved on to trying to fool the country into thinking that the government is about to splurge huge amounts of money on a 'repair and rebuild' programme. No doubt hoping that the apparent largesse will take our minds off their current appalling failure..

I'm contributing to this crowdfunder. I'll contribute to anything that holds this dreadful government to account...

This post disgusts me I must say. To even consider what you suggest in a Pandemic is unbelievable, you don’t speak for me, hindsight is wonderful except for those who have brilliant ideas after problems. I commend all those wonderful nhs staff, care workers and essential staff, my family included in that. The country is broke, I hope those out there are sensible enough to help get this country going, help all those workers that jobs are in jeopardy and small businesses folding, Our efforts should be support not demolition.

After (too) many years of experience of dementia, @GGumteenth, including eventually many years of visiting relatives in care homes, I’m sure that the vast majority of people only go down the care home route when caring for the person any other way is no longer possible.

That is usually because the person can no longer be safely left alone at all, not even for 15 minutes, either because you just don’t know what they might do safety wise (it can be like leaving a toddler on the loose) and/or because they become very anxious and frightened if left alone.

And/or because they are up and down half the night, shouting or calling out, and waking everybody up - just not sustainable if anyone still needs to work - or in our case with my FiL, you have children still at school and coming up to important exams.
I could go on about the other exhausting and stressful aspects of dementia, but I won’t.

I don’t think the vast majority of relatives go down the care home route without an awful lot of heart-searching first, and very often when they’re already exhausted with doing their best to care.

So I have to say that pious comments about uncaring relatives, so often from people who’ve never been at the sharp end, really p*ss me off.

I have to agree with Maizie, Jane10 there has been no evidence that the Conservatives under Dominic Cummings learn anything except how to destroy.

It seems that The Way Ahead is Tory tribe don't care what he does as long as he is in power. As that agrees with his view of himself they will all be happy with his destruction.

And you're off on another subject! Back to the usual then.

So, you don't believe in holding governments to account then Sparkling. That sort of thinking ferments revolution. Of course we have to hold them to account. So far The Only Way Is Tory lot have blamed
- the relatives of the dead elderly
- the homes
- and now you are having a go at those who want to find out the truth.

Where will this sink to next I wonder.

Interesting that QQ has Not returned to back up her comment

Sorry. That should have been The Way Ahead is Tory of course.

Sorry, my previous post should have been aimed at @quizqueen.

My OP Jane10 was about the failings of this government, the additional unnecessary deaths that has created and what we can do about it.

If you decide to discuss that do let us know.

I agree with Sparkling. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I'm no Tory but the amount of money and help made available to people has been amazing. The petty politics should be put to one side, I had to give up watching the Covid updates because of the constant gripping and truly stupid questions being asked.
Any shade of Government would have made mistakes and I see no point in rehashing, just move on and lets get back on our feet again.

Is excessive and unnecessary death "petty politics" now in the Tory wonderland?

Not letting government off the hook but most of tehse homes are privately owned and run and pay shareholders from profits,surely those profits SHOULD have been providing the PPE many of the homes didn't have .As a matter of course you would expecy any business to have the health and safety of their staff and inhabitants as being the most important thing on their list.Two homes locally have lost 10 of the elderly in their care ,thats care that costs them £1000 a week ,the staff in both complained PPE was locked away and had to be "begged" for when the manager was on site .Then theres the home on Skye that imported staff from KENT after lockdown .The responsibility MUST be shared for the mismanagement of the homes these greedy owners should be prosecuted for their failure to protect the elderly in their care

GG This is from the case page:
What are we going to do about it?My lawyers have written to the Secretary of State, NHS England and Public Health England pointing out their legal duty to protect life. My lawyers have requested that they accept responsibility for their unlawful conduct that has contributed to the death and serious illness of my father, patients, healthcare and care workers. If the proposed defendants refuse to accept responsibility then I will commence legal proceedings

I’m still unclear about what Cathy Gardner’s aims are.
Essentially, she’s making a formal complaint about the policies of Matt Hancock, NHS England, and Public Health England during the Covid Crisis, asserting that their acts and omissions amounted to unlawful conduct.

I’m not a lawyer, and would welcome contributions from any GNetters who have a legal background.

Writing to someone and pointing out they may have acted unlawfully doesn’t constitute a legal process. Whether illegal acts and omissions have occurred is for a court of law, or perhaps the Health and Safety Executive, to decide.

As for litigation, the aim of that is usually financial compensation, rather than making sure any mistakes are not repeated in the future.

I am sure there are more effective ways to hold the Government to account than paying lawyers to pursue a route of doubtful value, through the Health Select Committee and a public enquiry.

We can all write to our MPs and ultimately we all have a vote. The choice is ours.

To quote from a recent article in the Economist: “Here is [a lesson] for voters: when choosing a person or party to vote for, do not underestimate the importance of ordinary, decent competence.”