Killing not Care

UK Covid-19 Inquiry Module 6 Care Sector and Terminally Ill (End of Life) Bill

Dr Ros Jones, with heavy reliance on BiologyPhenom

Module 6 of the Inquiry has just completed taking evidence and much of it has been very harrowing. BiologyPhenom, whose daily substack articles covered the Scottish Inquiry’s care module last year, has also been reporting daily from the latest UK sessions.

Like others modules, it started with an impact video and like the Scottish Inquiry has included shocking testimony from not only relatives of those who had died in care homes, but also from a number of senior staff from charities and support groups.

The overwhelming impression is of numerous unnecessary deaths not from covid-19 but from loneliness, neglect, dehydration, denial of access to basic medical care, and most seriously the blanket application of ‘Do Not Attempt Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation’ (DNACPR or sometimes shortened to DNAR) across care homes for the elderly and even for young adult with disabilities, often without the patient’s consent or the family’s knowledge.

Most people would have understood that a DNAR notice pertained to what you wanted to happen if you were to have a cardiac arrest, and given the low success rate of cardiac resuscitation, this is a position which sounds logical if you already have a terminal diagnosis or advanced disease or even advanced age. But these covid-era DNAR were a very different beast. Because of triage arrangements within the NHS introduced in March 2020, some hospitals were refusing admission to anyone with a DNAR notice. Going back one step from hospital admission lies the ambulance service, and ambulances in some areas were refusing to attend anyone with a DNAR since they knew that their local hospital would refuse to take any such patient. In the same period, many GP surgeries had closed to in-person appointments and had stopped visits to care homes. Thus, a DNAR notice effectively meant DNT – Do Not Treat!

Worse still, having a DNAR notice was equated with providing end-of-life care. Drugs, particularly Morphine and Midazolam are intended for the relief of severe pain and distress, but given their known respiratory depressant effect they are totally unsuitable for someone with pneumonia who needs oxygen and fluids and maybe antibiotics.

Returning to the Inquiry, the opening day heard from core participants, starting with Judith Kilbee, from Scotland Covid Bereaved (SCB). She did not pull her punches. saying: ''SCB members feel their loved ones were denied access to treatment because of their age and address and some feel their loved ones were victims of EUTHANASIA.’’

One care home manager was told when dialling 111: “care home residents with Covid will not be admitted to hospital and that they should order the end-of-life pack.’’

This was not about hospital capacity. “The local medical director said, I want to be unequivocal, if someone needs to go to hospital they will go to hospital, we have the capacity, we have the facilities and there is absolutely no barrier to that. He also stated that hospital capacity is running at about 55% occupancy so there is definitely capacity in the hospital.’’

‘‘The COVID team agreed your dad was NOT at the end of his life. Your dad is certainly not end of life. His chest is clear.’’

Ms Kilbee’s written witness statement makes chilling reading.

Next up was Agnes McCasker, from COVID-19 Bereaved Families for Justice Northern Ireland, who stated:

‘‘One thing that greatly concerns me is the lack of any external oversight or inspections of the home during Covid.’’…. ‘‘I therefore feel that the end of family visits was detrimental, not just for my mother's mental health from the loss of social contact, but also because it meant that the family could not maintain oversight of the care provided to my mother and the state of her physical health, and there was no one else to provide this external oversight.’’

McCasker was followed by Helen Hough from Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru, and the whole morning’s proceedings can be viewed here.

Indeed this should be compulsory viewing for all senior policy makers.

As the days went on, we heard from Caroline Abrahams, CBE, director of AGE UK: (her full written statement is here)

‘‘In some places these policies or informal practices amounted to effective bans on older people being admitted to hospital, whether they had Covid-19 or not.’’ ‘‘Some care home residents were denied admission to hospital for any reason (including fractures, strokes and injuries)…

..In one example, we were told by a senior clinician overseeing a community hub through the pandemic that any older resident with respiratory symptoms was assumed to have contracted Covid-19 and would not be considered for further care. He described intervening personally on behalf of a resident he in fact judged to have a case of treatable pneumonia.’’

The testimony from Paul Featherstone. Founder. National Association of Care and Support Workers, was especially damning:

‘‘The pandemic proved that if you are ill, you are a problem to eliminate, not to treat. At some point it was a super excuse to not provide immediate care."

‘‘A further member referenced a blanket DNACPR policy saying: ‘‘I feel care homes were locked down in the expectation that most residents would not survive. GP services withdrawn. Told not to ring for an ambulance as they would not attend. Told to get DNACPR for all residents.’’

Biology Phenom’s daily reports from the Care Module, included this recent compilation. See (59) Exclusive|UK COVID-19 inquiry module 6 care sector 2025

On July 31st, on the last day of the Inquiry hearings, Together Declaration convened a round table panel entitled CARE: What was covered - and covered up - in UK Covid Inquiry? It is very clear from all the testimony that much has been covered up. Matt Hancock’s ‘protective ring’ around care homes was about as meaningless a phrase as the covid vaccines’ ‘SAFE AND EFFECTIVE’

So what has this to do with the Terminally Ill (End of Life) Bill? Just read the above and tell me that this Bill will be remotely equipped to prevent the abuse and coercion witnessed during 2020. The Bill which passed its 3^rd reading in the House of Commons last month by a narrow margin of 23 votes, now moves to the House of Lords where it is still possible to amend or even reject it completely.

Over the last few months, there has been a huge campaign to try and overturn or at least seriously modify Kim Leadbeater’s private member’s bill. It was of course in no manifesto, but Sir Keir Starmer did say on the campaign trail that if he were elected, he had promised Dame Esther Rantzen that he would enable some form of ‘Dignity in Dying’ legislation.

The only ‘safeguard’ in the Bill appears to be the requirement for someone to have less than 6 months to live, but this is notoriously hard to predict. Dame Edna herself exemplified one of the major pitfalls when she announced her delight that she had started a new treatment and her cancer had gone into remission. She seemed reluctant to point out that had the legislation she craved been available a few months earlier, she would have taken that route and never known that there was a new treatment around the corner.

Numerous groups have spoken out against this sea-change in the law, which would fundamentally alter the relationship between the citizen and the State, the patient and their doctor. The State is charged with maintaining the safety of its citizens and the doctor of course is bound by the fundamental rule of ‘Primum non Nocere’ – ‘First do no Harm’.

One major argument against the Bill is the risk of coercion, whether external from family members, or self-imposed – as in not wanting to ‘be a burden’. But one risk largely avoided by the legacy media, is the chilling possibility of coercion by the State, as seen playing out in care homes in 2020 and 2021, from Northern Ireland, to Scotland, to Wales, and no doubt to England as well.

If you haven’t yet done so, look on the Care not Killing website or for doctors go to Our Duty of Care. It is not too late to write to members of the House of Lords. Right to Life have a link here: Ask Peers to oppose the Leadbeater assisted suicide Bill

Acknowledgements: Biology Phenom has been writing almost daily throughout the Scottish Inquiry in 2024 and over the last 2 months on the UK Module 6: all his articles are available here biologyphenom | Substack