On 20th October 2026, Baroness Hallett DBE, Chair of the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, published her report on the care sector.
Care Rights UK was a core participant in this module of the Inquiry and Helen Wildbore, CEO, provided oral evidence.
Commenting on the report’s findings, Helen Wildbore said:
“The devastating impact of isolation of people in care settings has been laid bare in Baroness Hallett’s report. We welcome the recommendation by the Inquiry that people relying on care ‘should have the right to in-person visitors’. An amendment to the Health Bill is passing through Parliament to introduce the right to a ‘Health and Care Partner’ across health and care settings. We encourage the Government to take forward this amendment in order to implement one of the Inquiry’s recommendations immediately. People relying on care services should never again be an ‘afterthought’.”
Recommendations
We are pleased to see many of our key calls recognised in the report through recommendations, including on:
a right to in-person access to family/friends
mandatory training on end of life care for health and care staff
maintaining regulatory oversight
Our evidence and the voices of those we supported were quoted in the Inquiry report.
Baroness Hallett has made eight key recommendations:
· Recommendation 1: Improved pandemic planning for the adult social care sector
· Recommendation 2: Enable the safe and timely isolation of care home residents, including following discharge from hospital
· Recommendation 3: Financial support to adult social care staff to self-isolate or to limit working across multiple sites
· Recommendation 4: Visiting restrictions
· Recommendation 5: Maintaining regulatory oversight of care quality and safety in a public health emergency
· Recommendation 6: Collection of data about deaths of adult social care workers during a pandemic
· Recommendation 7: Mandatory end-of-life care training for health and social care professionals
· Recommendation 8: A voluntary workforce register for adult social care workers
We will be reviewing these in detail but are pleased to see that as well as recognising people’s rights to having in person visitors, there is recognition of the need for regulatory oversight to continue during a future public health emergency and of the need for proper training on end of life care for care workers. Both of which we called for in our evidence, alongside our fellow core participants John’s Campaign and The Patients Association.
People must be kept at the centre of all decisions that are being made. We made this point during the Inquiry and we will continue to push for people relying on care to have their dignity, autonomy and choice respected. There must be consideration and protection of their rights, not prioritisation of organisational best interests.