Bereaved group makes criminal complaint against Welsh Government over Covid failings

Martin Shipton

A campaign group has submitted a file to South Wales Police seeking a criminal investigation into the failure of the Welsh Government to protect vulnerable elderly residents of care homes during the pandemic.

The complaint comes from Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru (CBFJC), which represents around 340 families across Wales.

The families say they are seeking accountability for decisions and delays that exposed care home residents to avoidable risk during the pandemic, and have pointed to the ongoing investigation in Scotland, Operation Koper, by a dedicated Covid Deaths Investigation Team

Sam Smith-Higgins, co-lead of CBFJC, said: “We have given very careful consideration before submitting this file and we would not have taken this step unless we believed it was warranted. “As this may become a criminal investigation, we have been advised that we cannot comment further.”

Catherine Griffiths, the other co-lead of the group, said: “My father died from Covid in a Welsh care home. For many families like mine, this is about accountability – something we feel the Welsh Government has so far avoided.”

Ms Griffiths is from Machynlleth, while Ms Smith-Higgins, whose father died from hospital-acquired Covid, is from Cwmbran. and her Dad died from hospital-acquired Covid.

Concerns have repeatedly been raised about the discharge of hospital patients into care homes without Covid testing during the early months of the pandemic, about delays in introducing routine testing of care home residents and staff, and about decisions relating to the timing of vaccinations for care home residents.

Publicly available evidence presented to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry shows that more than 1,000 patients were discharged from Welsh hospitals into care homes during March and April 2020 before testing on discharge was introduced on April 29 2020. Routine testing in care homes was announced in mid-May 2020 and implemented across Wales by mid-June.

Concerns have also been raised about the timing of the Covid-19 vaccination rollout for care home residents, who had been identified by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation as the highest priority group for vaccination.

The group says its complaint relies on publicly available evidence from the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, court judgments and other published reports, and is asking police to assess whether the decisions and delays warrant a formal criminal investigation.

Meanwhile a report has been published which concludes that Wales’ post Covid-19 contingency plans lack sufficient independent verification to give confidence that they would withstand another major emergency. The Senedd’s Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee is calling for robust independent evaluation of the Welsh Government’s revised structures to measure how effectively they work in practice.

Monitoring

Although important reforms have been introduced – including the Wales Resilience Framework and updated governance structures – the committee heard that concerns remain about monitoring, accountability and the absence of external verification.

The committee recommends that the Welsh Government strengthens its evaluation of civil contingencies by introducing clear performance indicators, backed by independently substantiated evidence, to conclusively show whether we are seeing measurable improvements in the way we respond to emergencies. It also wants to see better support and integration with emergency responders, including the invaluable volunteer sector.

Committee chair Mark Isherwood said: “The Welsh Government may be better prepared today than before the Covid-19 pandemic, but preparedness built on self-assessment alone is not enough. The people of Wales should feel confident that our systems will hold up under pressure and subjecting emergency plans to external scrutiny is essential to building true resilience.

“Evidence also shows that emergency response systems are overly complex, and that our invaluable volunteer sector remains sidelined. There needs to be clearer coordination and a system that fully integrates and supports responders to perform at their best.”

‘Woefully unprepared’

Reacting to the committee report, Ms Smith-Higgins said: “Our group would like to thank the committee for the time and care they have taken to produce such a detailed report. The 28 recommendations clearly show that the Welsh Government was woefully unprepared for a pandemic. Vaughan Gething not reading anything was the tip of the iceberg.

“The Welsh Government has been in denial and cover-up mode about their actions in pandemic and we now feel that this report vindicates what we’ve been saying for years.

It’s also important to remember that this work builds on the UK Covid Inquiry’s Module 1 report, which didn’t examine Wales in any great depth, and the committee has only had access to publicly available documents. As core participants in the UK Covid Inquiry we have seen ALL the evidence. ALL of that information MUST be properly examined in a Wales-specific Covid Inquiry.

“Until there are real, systemic changes to governance and accountability in Wales, our country will not improve — and we know that when the full picture is examined, the number of recommendations needed will be far higher than 28.

“We feel vindicated. We have been a lone voice in Wales calling for accountability and as bereaved families we shouldn’t have had to do this alone. We thank Plaid Cymru, Welsh Conservatives, Wales Green Party and Welsh Liberal Democrats who have consistently backed our calls for a Wales Covid Inquiry. Hopefully this is the year that it finally happens.”

The Welsh Government declined to comment.