I lost my dad and sister to Covid - care inquiry will not bring change

A woman who lost her father and sister within five days of each other during the first Covid lockdown said she has no faith that the findings of an official inquiry into the outbreak in care homes will lead to change.

The sixth report from the Covid inquiry, released on Tuesday, found that government failures in care settings created an environment that allowed the virus to spread.

Jane Roche, from Castle Vale in Birmingham, was unable to visit her father, Vincent Pettitt, who had dementia, because of Covid restrictions. He died in hospital two weeks later in April 2020.

She said she knew her 86-year-old father needed her, which left her feeling devastated.

Her father died of aspiration pneumonia on 4 April 2020 at Heartlands Hospital in Birmingham. Her sister, Jocelyn Pettitt, was 54 when she died on 9 April 2020.

There were more than 43,000 recorded deaths involving Covid in care homes between March 2020 and July 2022, the inquiry said.

Roche said she used to visit her father twice a day in his care home before he was admitted to hospital with a cough, and later tested positive for Covid.

Although she was with him in his final hours, she said she had been unable to visit him at his care home in the weeks before, due to restrictions, something which tortures her.

"I'd never not visited him and I thought he's going to wonder where I am," she said.

"Then a few weeks later one of the carers confirmed to me that he did say, 'where's my Jane?' and that just absolutely kills me."

The inquiry said that the care sector appeared to be "something of an afterthought" in the early stages of the pandemic, and there was no "protective ring" put around homes as claimed by ministers at the time.

Roche said she believed that the former health secretary, Matt Hancock, did not protect homes.

"Absolutely it's unfounded that we knew within a few weeks – he didn't throw nothing around care homes to protect the elderly, the vulnerable – he fed them to the wolves, that's how I feel.

"My dad was vulnerable and he needed me."

Inquiry chair, Baroness Heather Hallett, also highlighted the toll visiting restrictions had on people, particularly residents, feeling the "profound isolation and sense of abandonment".

She added: "There was a significant decline in the health and wellbeing of residents, especially those with cognitive conditions like dementia."

Prime Minister Andy Burnham pledged to use the findings of Tuesday's report to develop an action plan in case of a future pandemic.

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