LONDON: Campaigners for the welfare of elderly people and their relatives are calling on the UK government to be more transparent after ...
LONDON: Campaigners for the welfare of elderly people and their relatives are calling on the UK government to be more transparent after authorities declined to disclose the number of COVID-19 deaths in individual care homes.
When Reuters asked for details of deaths in three homes badly hit by the virus in the London borough of Enfield, officials at the Care Quality Commission , which regulates care homes in England, said they could not disclose the data from any individual establishment. "Families and the wider public must know when and where outbreaks of coronavirus are happening," she told Reuters."This information is crucial in ensuring care homes are given the resources, support and attention they need to stop the spread of this awful virus."
Pressed by opposition Labour leader Keir Starmer on Wednesday about the high number of deaths in care homes, Prime Minister Boris Johnson told parliament:"Now, I am not going to try to pretend to the House that the figures, when they are finally confirmed, are anything other than stark and deeply, deeply horrifying. This has been an appalling epidemic."
When Reuters pressed the agency last week to release more detailed information under the UK's Freedom of Information Act, an official declined the request, on the grounds that care home operators have a reasonable expectation of confidentiality and wouldn't properly notify authorities of deaths - as the law requires - if they knew the information could be made public.
Emma Jones, a human rights solicitor and partner at law firm Leigh Day, said the commission is adopting a"very patriarchal stance".
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