A group of 30 families are suing the UK government, care homes and hospitals over the deaths of their relatives in the early days of the Covid pandemic.
The families argue that not enough was done to prevent the deaths and are claiming damages for loss of life and distress.
The cases all relate to deaths in 2020, when patients infected with Covid were being transferred from hospitals into care homes.
They say their human rights were breached by the government’s failure to protect their relatives’ right to life, as well as their right to private and family life and not to be discriminated against.
Amanda Henry is among those bringing the case. Her 78-year-old father, Robert Henry, died of Covid in April 2020 after contracting the virus in the care home where he was living with dementia.
She claimed that when she was allowed to visit her dying father, she saw staff not wearing PPE and that the GP who treated him had run out of Covid tests.
“The precautions weren’t taken to make sure that they were protected, which is what the government promised to do,” she said.
“We’ve been told that there were people discharged from hospital into that care home. So it could have been that, but also the care home locked down two weeks before the national lockdown and I noticed there were a lot of staff off sick when I was calling to check that Dad was all right.”
Henry, 41, said her “main motivation” in bringing the lawsuit was finding accountability for her father’s death. “Accountability from the government and accountability from the care home. The government should have been doing more. They promised us that they were doing more and they weren’t doing anything that they said they were doing.”
The case is being brought by the law firm Leigh Day. Emma Jones, the partner leading the case, said: “You cannot underestimate the impact the tragic loss of life, losing a loved one in such harrowing circumstances, has had on our clients.
“We hope that through bringing these cases there will be a full and thorough investigation into the deaths, which might help our clients to feel they have obtained justice for their loved ones.”
The legal action argues that the state failed to protect them by not publishing procedures or policies to be applied by care homes and hospitals. It will particularly focus on the decision in March 2020 to discharge hospital patients into care homes rapidly without testing or requiring them to isolate.
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Beatrice Morgan, a solicitor, said: “Our clients believe that the guidance issued by the health secretary in the early weeks of the pandemic led to thousands of unnecessary deaths. Many feel strongly that rather than trying to protect older people during that time, the guidance put their loved ones at an avoidable risk of harm.”
The government said it did not comment on continuing legal actions. A statement from the Department of Health and Social Care said: “Our thoughts are with all those who lost loved ones during the pandemic.
“Throughout the pandemic, our aim was to protect the public from the threat to health posed by Covid and we specifically sought to safeguard care home residents based on the best information at the time.
“We provided billions of pounds to support the sector, including on infection and prevention control, free PPE and priority vaccinations – with the vast majority of eligible care staff and residents receiving vaccinations.”