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Matt Hancock Tells Covid Inquiry Moving Patients to Care Homes Was 'Least-Worst Decision'
- Former health secretary Matt Hancock told the UK Covid Inquiry on July 3, 2025, that discharging hospital patients to care homes was the least-worst decision at the pandemic start.
- This decision arose from the urgent need to free hospital beds to avoid NHS overload, despite lacking policies for testing or isolating discharged patients until mid-April 2020.
- Hancock acknowledged the protective ring around care homes was not unbroken and admitted not advising isolation of asymptomatic residents was a mistake aligned with contemporaneous clinical guidance.
- From early 2020 through mid-2022, UK care homes experienced over 43,000 deaths linked to Covid-19, with a civil servant describing the impact as a "generational slaughter," and in 2022 the High Court declared the government’s patient discharge policies during the pandemic unlawful.
- Hancock urged focus on the substantive inquiry, emphasized his department’s efforts amid an unprecedented emergency, and warned the adult social care sector's situation has worsened, needing urgent reform.
12 Articles
12 Articles
Matt Hancock accused of insulting 'memory of every COVID victim' over inquiry comments
Former health secretary Matt Hancock has been accused of insulting the "memory of each and every person who died" over his description of the way patients were discharged into care homes during the COVID pandemic.
Matt Hancock tells Covid inquiry moving patients from hospitals to care homes was 'least-worst decision'
Discharging patients from hospitals to care homes in the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic was “the least-worst decision” at the time, former health secretary Matt Hancock has said.
Matt Hancock accused of insulting 'memory of every COVID victim' over
Former health secretary Matt Hancock has been accused of insulting the “memory of each and every person who died” over his description of the way patients were discharged into care homes during the COVID pandemic. Speaking at the inquiry into the government’s handling of the crisis, Mr Hancock said discharging patients from hospitals to care homes in the early stages of the pandemic was “the least-worst decision” at the time. “It was formally a …
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