LABOUR and Unite have called for an inquiry into the government’s handling of care homes during the pandemic after a damning report labelled it “reckless” and “at times negligent.”

The Commons public accounts committee report (PAC), published today, said that advising hospitals to transfer around 25,000 patients to care homes to free up beds without testing them for coronavirus was an “appalling” policy error.

The report added that it was “concerned” that the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) had continued with the policy “even once it was clear there was an emerging problem.”

More than 20,000 care home residents have died in Britain with Covid-19.

The government didn’t introduce tests for all care home staff and residents until the end of April, despite Public Health England telling PAC that it had been aware of asymptomatic transmission of Covid-19 in March.

PAC chairwoman Meg Hillier MP said that care homes had been “effectively thrown to the wolves” by the government.

Shadow work and pensions secretary Jonathan Reynolds said: “This is obviously something that requires an even fuller investigation to find out exactly how and why those decisions were made.”

Unite renewed its call for an urgent pandemic public inquiry to “dig deeper” into the scandal following the PAC’s damning report.

The union’s assistant general secretary Gail Cartmail also called for “swift government action on the broken business model” of privatised social care for adults.

She added: “The social care sector is predicated on an environment of insecure work leading to multiple work placements.

“The workforce needs job security, decent pay that recognises their skills and assurances on the basics, such as adequate PPE and sanitation provisions.

“There also needs to be a safeguarding structure for workers disproportionately at risk, such as those from the BAME communities.”