Discharging Untested Patients to Care Homes Ruled Unlawful by High Court
Government policies on discharging untested patients from hospital to care homes in England at the start of the Covid pandemic have been ruled unlawful by the High Court. BBC News has more.
The ruling came after two women took Public Health England and the Health Secretary, then Matt Hancock, to court. Dr. Cathy Gardner and Fay Harris said it had caused a “shocking death toll”.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson renewed his apologies for all those who lost loved ones during the pandemic.
When Covid hit in early 2020, patients were rapidly discharged into care homes without testing, despite the risk of asymptomatic transmission, with Government documents showing there was no requirement for this until mid-April.
Dr. Gardner and Ms Harris said there had been failures in protecting residents and brought the legal challenge. They partially succeeded in claims against Public Health England and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.
Speaking outside court, Dr. Gardner said she “believed all along that my father and other residents of care homes were neglected and let down by the Government”.
“The High Court has now vindicated that belief, and our campaign to expose the truth,” she said.
In their judgment, Lord Justice Bean and Mr. Justice Garnham found the decisions of the then Health Secretary to make and maintain a series of policies contained in documents issued on March 17th and 19th and April 2nd 2020 were unlawful.
They ruled this was on the grounds the drafters of those documents failed to take into account the risk to elderly and vulnerable residents from non-symptomatic transmission, which had been highlighted by Sir Patrick Vallance in a radio interview as early as March 13th.
Sir Patrick told the Today programme that “it’s quite likely that there is some degree of asymptomatic transmission”.
A barrister representing Dr. Gardner, from Sidmouth in Devon, and Ms. Harris, from Medstead in Hampshire, told the court at a hearing in March that more than 20,000 elderly or disabled care home residents died from Covid between March and June 2020 in England and Wales.
Jason Coppel QC also said in a written case outline for the judicial review that the care home population was known to be “uniquely vulnerable” to Covid.
“The Government’s failure to protect it, and positive steps taken by the Government which introduced COVID-19 infection into care homes, represent one of the most egregious and devastating policy failures in the modern era,” he added.
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Obviously they knew that but saw the utility. From an expenditure point of view you could easily make that argument. Over ninety percent of the NHS budget is spent in the last six weeks of end of life care. I can see the impetus especially in a time when people live longer. But you can’t just kill people with a nod and a wink. Many of those people killed with Midazolam could’ve lived a few more years. And who are we to say that these years are any less valuable than years spent in activity. It was a dreadful decision and we will reap the whirlwind.
Indeed, and there would be more than enough money for gold standard care for the elderly if the obscene amounts spent on diversity, ‘asylum seekers’, ‘climate change’ etc etc, were severely curtailed or stopped altogether.
Don’t forget foreign aid, which is still – even now, while we’re teetering on the edge of financial catastrophe – being borrowed from our great-great grandchildren and doled out with impunity.
Yep, there is a long, long list – hence the etc, etc 😉
At the very least, our societies are careless with the lives of the vulnerable elderly and disrespectful of them as human beings.
This is immoral. But in times when virtue is to be signalled rather than practised that doesn’t seem to matter.
All that does seem to matter is whether or not one has the strength or position to get away with immorality. So we must ensure that they do not.
This whole terrible episode in human history has revealed just how morally fragile our societies have become. If we do not take stock and declare enough, we will descend into a cruel and vicious jungle, where lies and malpractice are the norm. We’re staring at it now.
Maybe parts of the Judicial system have yet to be nobbled.
One can but hope.
The Human Rights “Lawyers” did the square root of F**k all about it when it really mattered. As a Lawyer I am ashamed of them.
I never used to be a fan of Capital Punishment, but Hancock et al deserve to swing.
“Health” Secretary, Jesus Christ….
They’ve killed enough people. It has to be asked, what will stop this happening again?
See the above by Sforzesca.
Sounds like a clear case of manslaughter at the minimum. What would a normal person get for that? What is stick-at-naught Hancock likely to get? No justice if he doesn’t get brought to trial.
Exactly my thoughts – as above.
Is there a court that would even listen to a case, let alone convict someone like him? (And there are many like him.)
The only thing that will stop anything politically reckless happening again is when parliamentarians are dragged from the HoC by a baying mob and summarily dealt with in the street.
Not that I condone violence of any type.
I would happily offer my services as an expert witness.
What are you expert at?
Nothing. It will be easier for them next time.
It was old Greavsie who said, ‘Better late than never, Saint.’
Will the criminals and killers truly be held accountable?
Not in this life….
Can’t find any reference here or in the BBC article about punishment. If you’re guilty of manslaughter then you go to jail. When does THAT trial start?
Never- rather wait for “lessons to be learned”…no-one to blame
It was a “systemic failure, no individuals were responsible”
And these will be the findings of the public inquiry
Exactly my thoughts – as above.
Heartening to hear a lawyer responding like this.
Lawyers are far from my favourite people. Far too many dealings with them where, when acting in my interests, I have come off a poor second best.
However, I do realise there are decent members of the profession around (there must be), it’s just damn difficult to find one.
However, back to the subject in hand. I daresay Hancock and all the rest are protected by parliamentary privilege, or some such concocted get out. Unless of course they shit in their own nest, then they endure coventry until they are believed suitably chastened.
Around a week by all appearances, irrespective of the level of their ‘indiscretions’.
The real granny killers. There’s been problems in the care sector for years (and with an ageing population). I wondered if it was a cost cutting exercise. Seems like it, doesn’t it. Villains.
Denying sick people proper access to doctors and healthcare because of ‘Covid’ caused and is still causing many more avoidable casualties. Their pandemic propaganda was more important han people’s health needs.
They have wrecked our Health Service over decades of stealth privatisation, politicisation, and neglect and everyone can see it .Politicians and civil servants simply do not care – their concerns are PC gender Wars, “Diversity” and how to get cheap easily manipulated labour forces working in our alienating Hospitals and Care Homes
Actually it got better before 2010, when the Tories cut the funding. Any “sceptics” vote Tory?
Who were the real granny killers? Sick of the lot of them. I’d like to see them all in court.
What court would that be, then? Imagine how sickening it would be to watch them writhe and slither in front of a judge and then be let off with a slap on the wrist.
Hancock and others in government are guilty of murder and should be charged accordingly.
Manslaughter. They would get off a murder charge. And we wouldn’t want that would we? Even 4 or 5 years inside would have a remarkable effect on other politicians future conduct.
The difference is intention. I believe there was intention therefore it should be murder. Impossible out prove of course. Anyway, it will be neither.
But never will be.
Perhaps you don’t understand what murder is.
Not murder as that requires malice afore thought, i.e. intention to kill. Manslaughter still carries a sentence of up to life imprisonment, but not a mandatory life sentence like murder.
This is horse sh!t and just supports the covid fraud narrative same way as Partygate.
As long as DS ignores the other charges that have been brought against the government regarding midazolam administration, I’ll suspect them of being false opposition to this tyranny.
I agree. To blather on about ‘testing’ is just a red herring.
“….patients were rapidly discharged into care homes without testing, despite the risk of asymptomatic transmission, with Government documents showing there was no requirement for this until mid-April.”
Asymptomatic transmission for this and respiratory diseases in general was not significant. They were discharged whether ill or not, i.e. presenting symptoms or not. That is the scandal together with the issue of midazolam. Despite slamming the government, this ruling is still playing along with the narrative.
That’s all very well.
But here is the problem I have.
If I do something unlawful that leads to someone’s death, the chances are I am going to end up behind bars.
We all know that no one involved in this decision will end up behind bars for it.
And this is a very fundamental problem we have in society. It’s just all too easy for Matt Hancock or Boris Johnson or whoever to make rules and give orders to the population knowing that if what they do somehow goes wrong, the worst thing that will happen to them is that they’ll lose their job.
If people in authority had to face serious repercussions for the bad consequences of their actions, the state would be far more subdued and we would all be much freer.
The constant encroachment of the state into our lives is driven by a system that allows people in authority that act with impunity.
The argument is made that were politicians to be held responsible for their actions no one would become a politician.
However, businessmen run large organisations where decisions are made every day that affect lives, and they are held responsible for their actions.
If no-one became a politician the rest of us would be a lot better off.
Perhaps we should have some anonymous folk on a shady website make the laws.
is that really the best you can do tree???
your employers are overpaying you for crap like that
No change there, then?
How many can you name that have been prosecuted for corporate manslaughter?
It never happens. They don’t get held to account either. Often a lower down scapegoat is sacrifices.
How about some ‘Common Law Constables’ from the Guardians300 go and arrest Matt Hancock… they have, allegedly, murdered thousands. Isn’t there something in the Magna Carta about that?!
Come on, ‘constables’, show a leg!
I can’t help thinking these people who call themselves ‘Common Law Constables’ after attending Guardians300 ‘seminars’ are really mostly interested in trying to wriggle out of their own parking fines and knowing what smart thing to say when the goons from Capita turn up at their doorstep to ask if they have a TV licence.
“I do not consent”… or some old bollocks like that.
I agree with every line you have written, except this one:
We all know that no one involved in this decision will end up behind bars for it.
We don’t know that yet. That’s what we suspect will be the case. But it must not be. This is our existential crisis, because:
If people in authority had to face serious repercussions for the bad consequences of their actions, the state would be far more subdued and we would all be much freer.
The constant encroachment of the state into our lives is driven by a system that allows people in authority that act with impunity.
But that depends upon unbiased courts and unnobbled judges/juries – as well as those willing to press charges in the first place.
Good post.
Spot on. Absolutely spot on.
They should be put on trial. I think it could be done. No one thought initially they were going to be held accountable for parties, but they are now. We need to start talking about this. We’ll see who spills the beans on their colleagues.
Trials involve lawyers and judges. Who’d want to stick their heads over the parapet? They’ve seen what happened to people who spoke out of turn in other countries, judges included. I doubt there’d be a court that would convict any one of these cruel, self-serving, arrogant b*ggers.
Is there any actual evidence that asymptomatic transmission had any bearing on this? I suspect another excuse to cover their increasingly naked backsides.
No such thing.
If would be accepted as a thing based on Vallence’s comments.
Now, the government could have made the defence that it has been over stated, that there is little evidence. Bring forth the German woman who was the whole basis for asymptomatic transmission (subsequently found not to be the case after NEJM had already published details of the case).
However, such a defence would have been impossible for the government. The whole scam to lock people down was based on the asymptomatic hoodwink. They may have ended up winning the battle but losing a much bigger war if they’d gone down that route.
What we are witnessing though is government ministers caught in their own lies.
The web of Lies is now so thick it is difficult to disentangle one from another.
So in your mistaken belief that asymptomatic infection does not exist, you are actually defending the government.
Are you sure that’s what you mean?
Seems you are confused.
And of course you can point to the evidence of asymptomatic (as opposed to presymptomatic) infection.
It’s quite funny – guilty as a result of their own evidence:
Asymptomatic transmission.
“It’s a cracker!”
She also said in self-commentary that she was only “ripping off the plaster”.
You can watch the video here.
She’s ‘ard, you see – she faces reality. She knows the coalface.
I feel so sorry for anybody who has a character like June Andrews anywhere near them when they are dying.
She is called an “ex”-“nurse” in the media to hide the fact that she was a very senior figure at the time she said what she said.
Incidentally as soon as I mentioned in another web discussion place that people known to be infected with SARSCoV2 were being sent back to care homes I got permanently banned.
It was deliberate mass murder.
To think a civil “judicial review” resolves this is ludicrous.
But wait – according to the BBC report on the judgement, “Prime Minister
Enver HoxhaBoris Johnson renewed his apologies for all those who lost loved ones during the pandemic.”In other news, whoever it was who gave the story to the Daily Mail about Angela Rayner crossing and uncrossing her legs “provocatively” in the Commons, was the source of the story by any chance an obese guy in his late 50s with blond hair that he doesn’t comb? He should be on the suspect list, no?
I thought it was the NHS that bounced the old back to their care homes once they’d caught covid after their unnecessarily long stays in hospitals.
I didn’t realise it was the governments fault.
was this when the government wanted beds for sick covid patients?
will there be a court case from the families of those killed because they where put on ventilators?
how about those killed as they where told to take an unproven jab?
Nothing is ever the fault of the sainted NHS – get banging those pans for ‘Our NHS’!
So, the judges basically ruled that it’s warranted to imprison healthy people for up to 14 days unless they can show a recent, negative Sars-CoV2 test?
The document could, for example, have said that where an asymptomatic patient, other than one who has tested negative, is admitted to a care home, he or she should, so far as practicable, be kept apart from other residents for up to 14 days.
Because Vallance expressed the opinion that Healthy people who didn’t test negative could spread diseases? Seems the historic Enemies of the people headline wasn’t that much off.
Vallance has much explaining to do – he should be interogated by Mike Yeadon.We need a Covid Court .
You really should not idolise Yeadon. It’s quite pathetic given the fact that he is an idiot.
No one is idolising Yeadon. Do you even understand terms and their definitions?
You’re hysterical, what.
Now you’ve gone to the opposite extreme of that which you accuse others. Were you born this dense or were you trained well?
Yes, dearie, it is astonishingly pathetic. Get a hold of yourself, sausage.
Midazolam Matt,
Says fancy that!
I couldn’t care less about your mum,
‘Cos Gina let me squeeze her bum!
“Matt Hancock ‘affair’: Aide Gina Coladangelo’s brother has top job at company with NHS contracts”
https://news.sky.com/story/matt-hancock-affair-aide-gina-coladangelos-relative-has-top-job-at-company-with-nhs-contracts-12341789
Posed for the cameras?
We need yet another Independent Enquiry this time into Hancock’s financial ‘affairs’.
I believe the headless chickens were focused entirely on the sacred NHS with no compassion for individuals and no risk assessment. They were booting out bed blockers to clear the stage for the blessed drama queens to perform.
So not only were they reckless, but intentionally so.
Imagine any of us could just act recklessly on the grounds that it we thought it might serve the greater good – and no need to demonstrate it, mind you, just have the gut feeling it’s the right thing – and then if someone died as a result, we could just go “oops, sorry, that was a mistake” and that was that.
It was just panic and stupidity.
And you fell for it
It is ironic that the people we were supposedly protecting had their lives cut short by the very same strategy that was designed (or so we were told) to keep them safe. Anyone for another pointless lockdown?
Sending vulnerable and critically ill back to care homes from hospital where GP’s refused to visit, was inhumane. Will the perpetrators be prosecuted now or did the Coronavirus act give them immunity
“GPs refused to visit” More questions to answer.
Careful. You are disagreeing with most on here that say asymptomatic transmission is impossible.
I have not seen one person on here say asymptomatic transmission is ‘impossible’, nor have I seen any scientist or academic say this. Either you’re a liar or you’re too dense to understand the argument, which is that asymptomatic transmission is not sufficient to drive a pandemic.
You have inadvertently exposed your sheer ignorance. You’ve had two years to understand our arguments, and like the rest of the cultists you just haven’t bothered.
She’s not a ”cultist” – I doubt very much if any cult would have her, as she doesn’t seem at all bright. She’s just an agente provocateuse – and therefore not worth responding to.
The reality of the situation is as follows: We don’t know if it can happen. And have – so far – no way of determining this for real world situations. Even more importantly: It doesn’t matter. Given our current level of knowledge, the only way to prevent transmission is to keep all people in permanent isolation from each other. And not some fishy shit like what they’re doing in China but real isolation, ie, shared nothing: Everybody needs his own water and air supply which must be physically separate from all others. It follows that we have to build a few billion single person spaceships using some yet-to-be-invented technology to create water, air and food out of some sort of biologically inert raw material and force everyone to remain in his for the remainder of his life. As that’s clearly impractial, a better solution would be: Kill all people to prevent them from getting infected with Sars-CoV2. Anything short of that doesn’t work and hence, it must be unlawful. Of course, the idea that the best way to deal with a usually harmless infection is Cull all people!, ie, the avian flu method, is probably not what those high court… Read more »
A dangerous ruling.
On the basis that it gives credence to the lies of asymptomatic spread and the effectiveness of PCR testing.
I think I can see how the inquiry is going to go on this basis – measures should have been a lot harsher and applied earlier.
Yeadon says that “Asymptomatic Spreading” has never before been suggested in an air born virus.
The fact is that those expelled from Hospitals did have symptoms or didn’t have Covid.
Yes but he has shown himself to be wrong on many occasions.
Just chant lies, lies, lies.
It makes clear that you should be ignored.
There is an important distinction between asymptomatic and presymptomatic transmission- they should not be used interchangeably. Presymptomatic is when a person may be starting with a sore throat or headache or stuffy nose and may be capable of infecting others, may even have a raised temperature. Asymptomatic is without symptoms and therefore it is impossible to transmit to others. The old ejected in to care homes en masse were not distinguished between the 2 categories…..there must have been many who were presymptomatic and those transmitted the virus, those without symptoms did not but were likely to be receptacles for SARS CoV-2.
As Draper says below (a quicker summation than this) this ruling from the Queens Bench can be used to the government’s advantage and perpetuate testing and masks and any other NPIs such as the vaxx pass.
Excellent clarification – if only our dissembling Government Experts had a half decent grasp of the subjects they claimed to be “expert” in!
Except the clarification is wrong.
Obviously you are wrong about asymptomatic transmission being impossible.
Plus it can be several days from point of infection to onset of symptoms. You may technically be able to test positive during this period but not be infectious. In effect people may have been dischanrged during this period and then went on to get symptoms in the care home. There have been many studies into asymptomatic transmission and it is a fallacy that it is a significant source of spread. The biggest study in china didnt find any evidence (yes i know china but you would have thought they would want to support the asymptomatic transfer narrative). Even fauci admits symptomatic people are the drivers of epidemics of this nature. Pre symptomatic is low single figure % contribution from what i have read. One of the differences between sars 1 and 2 is that it seems you are most infectious around the point of onset of symptoms with 2 rather then after a few days of symptoms with 1. Of course the reason the clowns think there is so much asymptomatic transmission is because about a 1/3 of people were testing positive and not getting any symptoms due to the ridiculous cycle rates of the pcr tests and the… Read more »
Yes…the mass testing across all age ranges supports the narrative of asymptomatic spread, which is critical for the unnecessary NPIs.
Throwing the elderly out of hospital when their own website https://www.gov.uk/guidance/high-consequence-infectious-diseases-hcid#status-of-covid-19 characterises the nonexistent SARSCOV2 as “LOW MORTALITY” ie there was no emergency and they knew it – throwing them out was part of the scenery to the COVID operation, a bit like the useless NIghtingale Hospitals they knew they would never need. It was all about spreading covid terrorism. It was a bluff.
The British Government is a defacto terrorist organisation which has deceived and conned the British public in the most profound and evil manner. They are disgusting and this website is being way too kind to them .Old school mates looking out for each other. Makes me sick.
Get a grip
Terrorism Act as defined by the CPS
https://www.cps.gov.uk/crime-info/terrorism
Several instances are listed, which do confirm the UK government have breached the act.
Get an argument.
He’s orf ‘is tree, what.
With any luck, (s)he’s an ash – which means (s)he’s doomed. Every cloud, and all that…..
Stop giving apologies Johnson, take the punishments you are due like a leader.
My recollection was that the elderly patients were moved from hospital to make way for the expected massive influx of younger patients. This was part of the standard pandemic plan which we have had for many years, modelled on the assumption that a ‘Spanish Flu’ virus might strike again, with a massive death toll. If this were to happen, the plan was to sacrifice the elderly in order to save as many young as possible – an approach which, as an elderly person, I have no problems with. IF we had a high-fatality epidemic attacking everyone, this is a justifiable response. There were two problems here. One was that Covid turned out NOT to be a particularly high-fatality disease, and was mainly a lethal threat to the elderly. And the second was that we changed tactics in mid-stream and went for full lockdown while developing a vaccination cure. Which turned out to fail – but we did not know that at the time. So we killed a lot of the elderly population for no gain. But we could only see that in retrospect. I think that once the timings of our understanding of Covid are appreciated, this court decision will… Read more »
However, SARS CoV 2 had been downgraded mid March to a non HCID so they knew then how the previous plans could be/ needed to be adapted. The ‘retrospective’ ‘argument’ allows the cabal to evade full accountability. Voices such as J. Ionaniddes had called it a similar to a bad flu season in the spring of 2020…..such voices were ignored because the ‘script’ was being followed.
…apologies for my post…superfluous to requirements!
Why is this case only being reported now? Was there a news blackout?
It does rather beg the question: Were the Health and Safety Executive asleep for two years, or just ‘Working From Home’?
Everyone falling over themselves to take the Eichmann defense: I was only obeying orders.
The buck stops with no one.
“We got all the big calls right” …… except:
Covid was always going to get into care homes and kill a lot of people. That’s the uncomfortable truth. Some people find reality hard to bear and seek solace in court judgements, which is sad, as all it does is enrich lawyers.
The action of discharging patients was declared unlawful. Although I am not a lawyer, my feeling is that individual families would have to take civil action against PHE and Matt Hancock or start a class action. The advantage of a civil case is the lower requirement of “on the balance of probabilities”, whereas a criminal case would require “beyond reasonable doubt”. The only evidence would be cause of death on the death certificate, there were no contemporaneous autopsies or inquests.
If someone commits an illegal act and people die as a result, surely murder or manslaughter charges should be considered? Why wouldn’t it – what am I missing?
But we now know that the PCR test is not fit for purpose and that it can’t detect infection. And we know that it’s highly unlikely that asymptomatic people will spread the infection.
The carelessness and cruelty of all this was wrong on many levels – but ‘testing’? These ‘tests’ are rubbish now and they were rubbish then.
and what? who is responsible and how will they be reprimanded: jail time or more likely a promotion, knighthood, or directorship somewhere.