Alliance Health spokesperson Paula Bradshaw has called for a Northern Ireland specific public inquiry into the response to Covid-19 in care homes.

Her comments follow the ruling of the High Court in England that the UK Government’s policy on discharging untested patients from hospitals to care homes was ‘unlawful’.

“The same mistakes made in England were made in Northern Ireland,” she said.

“Bereaved families here deserve the opportunity to tell their stories and should be allowed the comfort of knowing that lessons will be learnt..

“Patients should never have been discharged to care homes without rigorous testing in place and lives will have been lost as a result. This should never be allowed to occur again, and that’s why our Alliance manifesto is committed to a full public inquiry into the pandemic response in care homes. 

“Those who lost their loved ones in this way deserve to know why these decisions were taken and exactly what went wrong.”