Caroline, Abrahams, CBE, Charity Director at Age UK said:

"Today's report is, in its own way, quietly devastating. It describes what in truth we already knew: that when COVID-19 took off, people using social care and the staff and unpaid carers providing it were left totally exposed. It makes clear that this was mainly due to a complete absence of pre-planning, leading to the system being overwhelmed when the virus struck. It is tremendously important that Government heeds this lesson and that work begins now on actioning those of the Enquiry's recommendations which do not depend on fundamental social care reform, visiting guidance in care homes in the event of another Pandemic being one of several examples.

"But fundamental social care reform is also required, and today's report reinforces how important it is that we now actually see it. If a National Care Service had already been in place, underpinned by national standards and with clear accountability to Government, the various disasters that befell social care during the Pandemic would have been lessened and some might have been avoided altogether. It is for Baroness Casey to work out exactly how a National Care Service should operate, but especially in light of today's report it is also the responsibility of politicians across the spectrum to look firstly towards what they can all agree on, rather than where political advantage may lie.

"We should never forget the hundreds of thousands of individuals and families who saw and experienced things in social care that no one ever should: the loved ones left to die alone or seen only through windows; the care home residents dying with pain that care staff could not alleviate because they didn't have the drugs and because health professionals had been withdrawn. If we can come together to implement the Pandemic Enquiry's recommendations and bring about the reform of social care then we've a good chance of ensuring tragedies like these won't happen again, but until then social care and the people in it remain vulnerable to threats of all kinds."