Boris Johnson has expressed "full confidence" in Health Secretary Matt Hancock over claims he lied about protecting care homes from Covid. The West Midlands Care Association does not share Boris Johnson’s confidence!

It is inherently clear that at the outset of the Covid pandemic, hospital patients were being sent to care homes without being tested. This has been corroborated in the testimony provided by former Prime Ministerial advisor Dominic Cummins to the select committee this week.

Our members were hampered at the start of this crisis by non-existent, or conflicting advice; being forced to accept residents discharged from hospitals who were not tested, or who's results were unknown, all while operating without proper access to PPE.

During a time of unprecedented upheaval, and despite having received no proper advice from the government, our members acted quickly and decisively to implement procedures to mitigate the spread of the virus.

If our members had not reacted as and when they did, the outcome would have been far worse. They have gone above and beyond to protect the vulnerable people in their care.

The government has failed our members and the families who have tragically lost relatives prematurely to Covid. They deserve the truth. We fully support demands for an official inquiry to be held into these failures now.