UK COVID-19 inquiry 30 Jun 2025

Opening submission for Module 6. Scottish COVID Bereaved.

Introduction

Opening submission by Claire Mitchell KC for the Scottish COVID Bereaved. You can view the SCBs shocking unreported (even 12 months on by ANY media) closing statement evidence at the Scottish COVID-19 inquiry here.

• Dying alone

• Lack of care

• DNRs

• Staffing/bed issues

• Healthcare abandonment

• Isolation

‘For those that lost loves ones in care and nursing homes their grief was compunded in many cases by the inability to spend those precious last few hours together.’’

‘‘Many of the families of the bereaved are left wondering how their loved ones came to contract COVID in the first place…whether they received the care they needed and whether they were unthinkingly made subject to do not attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation orders.’’

‘‘The SCB consider that staffing levels and bed capacity immediately prior to the pandemic were already unfit for purpose and that sadly remains the case. These pre-existing problems were compounded by the pandemic and the SCB consider that deaths related to COVID-19 are in part based on those pre-existing problems.’’

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