A BRADFORD district care home owner has criticised the Government’s policies on discharging hospital patients into care homes at the start of the pandemic after it was ruled as unlawful by the High Court.

David Crabtree, who runs Sunningdale in Heaton and The Raikes in Silsden, has reacted after government policies on discharging hospital patients into care homes in 2020 were ‘unlawful’, the High Court has ruled, undermining claims that a “protective ring” was put in place for the most vulnerable.

Two women who took legal action after their fathers died from Covid-19 – Cathy Gardner, whose father Michael Gibson died, and Fay Harris, whose father Donald died – partially succeeded in their claims against the Government on Wednesday.

When the pandemic 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.

The judges said it was necessary to discharge patients “to preserve the capacity of the NHS” and called the suggestion that the Government should have made provision in March for testing each patient before discharge “hopeless”.

But they found it was “irrational” for the Government not to have advised that asymptomatic patients should isolate from existing residents for 14 days after admission.

Bereaved families and care groups said the ruling proves the “protective ring” then health secretary Matt Hancock said had been put around care homes was “non-existent”, a “sickening lie” and a “joke”.

A spokesman for Mr Hancock said Public Health England (PHE) had failed to tell ministers what they knew about asymptomatic transmission and he wished it had been brought to his attention sooner.

Speaking on today’s ITV Good Morning Britain, Mr Crabtree, who owns Crabtree Care Homes, said: “They (government) finger pointed and blamed anybody but themselves.

“They have lied since day one.”

Mr Crabtree added following yesterday’s High Court ruling, other relatives of those discharged from hospitals into care homes during the same period should also now seek legal advice.

Jason Coppel QC, representing the two women, told the High Court last month that between March and June 2020 more than 20,000 elderly or disabled care home residents died from Covid-19 in England and Wales.

A spokesman for the former health secretary said the High Court had found he acted reasonably and he had been cleared “of any wrongdoing”, adding that PHE “failed to tell ministers what they knew about asymptomatic transmission” of Covid-19.

A Government spokesman said it had been a “very difficult decision”, taken when evidence on asymptomatic transmission was “extremely uncertain”.