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Families call for action on care home deaths Inquiry to watch impact film from relatives

- BY MARTIN BAGOT and PAUL HUTCHEON

GRIEVING families will today demand politicians be held to account when they open up about their heartbreaking final moments with loved ones.

The UK Covid inquiry will look at the impact of the pandemic on care homes and how social distancing guidelines meant relatives were prevented from saying their final goodbyes.

Families are furious ex-prime minister Boris Johnson's government had at the same time been holding parties in Downing Street and flouting social distancing rules.

Among the key government decisions under scrutiny will be the discharge of hospital patients into care homes without testing or a requirement for them to isolate.

Louise Baker, from Aberdeen, said her father Sandy Adam died at his care home two days before the infamous No10 Christmas party. The 49-year-old said: "He had dementia but it wasn't that far progressed that he didn't know who we were. After lockdown none of it made sense to him.

"Initially we could just shout in through a small gap in his tilt window but he was very hard of hearing. We couldn't hug him."

Sandy, a retired dentist, had been allowed a meeting in the car park with Louise before his death at the age of 81 but they were not allowed within five metres of each other.

She recalled: "He just sat there with his arms folded." Louise's accounts will be played today in an impact film at the start of Module 6 in front of inquiry chair Baroness Heather Hallett.