The UK Covid-19 Inquiry is marking Carers Week (8–14 June) by sharing what unpaid carers have told us about their experiences during the pandemic, including stories of burnout, stress, trauma, loss and grief.
The Inquiry’s ‘Care Sector’ (Module 6) investigation examines the impact of the pandemic on the adult social care sector across all four nations of the UK. The Inquiry will publish its Module 6 report in just a few months’ time. As part of this investigation, the Inquiry has examined the experiences of people who gave and received care in their own homes – including unpaid carers such as family members and friends.
Public hearings for Module 6 took place over four weeks a year ago. The Chair of the Inquiry, Baroness Heather Hallett, heard from 54 witnesses. People’s pandemic experiences, including contributions from those who gave and received care during the pandemic, as well as those who shared their stories through Every Story Matters and Inquiry impact films, have been central to the Inquiry’s care sector investigation.
My grandma had dementia, so before we were all looking after her…but then no one was allowed to visit each other…she started going funny and it was just me and her… I used to help her eat, her breakfast, her lunch, try giving her a bath, just get her to stand up and even like just in the garden, try making her walk a bit…sometimes, it used to get too much, it got too much [for my mental health].
The stories of those with direct experience of both giving and receiving care during the pandemic have been central to its investigation. A year ago, the Inquiry published the results of its listening exercise on adult social care, the Module 6 Every Story Matters record. Every Story Matters is the largest public engagement exercise ever undertaken by a UK public inquiry with more than 58,000 people sharing their pandemic experiences with the Inquiry.
The Module 6 record draws on more than 47,000 personal stories alongside insights gathered through 336 research interviews and 38 events held across all four nations of the UK.
I’m having to constantly worry about [my partner]. I sometimes felt a bit suffocated and trapped, and there was no way of getting out of that. That’s how I felt at times during the pandemic because I felt like I was a prisoner trapped in my own home with no escape.
The 2021 census in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and the 2022 census in Scotland, recorded that approximately 5.8 million people were providing unpaid care in the UK. Of those, almost six in every 10 unpaid carers (59%) were women and around 1.7 million people were providing 50 or more hours of unpaid care every week.
When he became really ill, it was really draining and scary and very, very lonely. Of course, people would ring and say, ‘If there’s anything we could do’ but there was nothing because, in the first [lockdown], they weren’t allowed in the house. You were totally isolated.
At the start of the Module 6 public hearings, the Inquiry screened an impact film. It features members of the public from across the UK speaking about their experiences of giving and receiving care during the pandemic. Impact films were shown at the beginning of hearings to set the context and tone, ensuring proceedings were grounded in people’s experiences from the outset. They feature the voices of people from across the UK and are a reminder of the human impact at the heart of the Inquiry’s work.
(Please note: the Module 6 impact film contains personal accounts that include references to bereavement, end-of-life care, hospital admission and the emotional and mental health impacts of the pandemic.)
Watch the Module 6 impact film on the Inquiry’s website.
Every day of the Inquiry’s Module 6 public hearings can also be watched back on the Inquiry’s YouTube channel.
Through the Every Story Matters listening exercise, the Inquiry has heard about the different circumstances many carers experienced during the pandemic. Carers and workers told us they experienced burnout and stress, trauma, grief and loss. Their stories have helped the Inquiry investigate the impact of the pandemic on the adult social care sector, the people who provide care, and those who draw on care and support. This Carers’ Week, I want to thank all the carers who took the time to share their pandemic story with the Inquiry.
The Inquiry will publish Baroness Hallett’s report on adult social care later this year. This will set out her recommendations to help the adult social care sector plan for, and respond, to the next pandemic.
We will be monitoring the implementation of these recommendations, asking governments in all four nations to publish their response within six months of the report being published. The swift implementation of the Chair’s recommendations is vital in order to make sure the UK is better prepared for the next pandemic.There will be another pandemic, we just don’t know when.
The Chair of the Inquiry, Baroness Hallett, will set out her findings and recommendations in the Module 6 report, set to be published this autumn. The Inquiry expects all recommendations to be implemented without delay and governments across all four nations will be asked to publish their responses within six months of publication.
The Inquiry has so far published reports for Module 1 ‘Resilience and Preparedness’, Module 2 ‘Core Decision-making and Political Governance’, Module 3 ‘Healthcare’ and Module 4 ‘Vaccines and Therapeutics’. Baroness Hallett notes the action taken by the four governments of the UK to date – including the publication last month of the UK government’s new Pandemic Preparedness Strategy. Progress on the implementation of recommendations can be tracked on the Monitoring of Inquiry Recommendations page on the Inquiry’s website.
Reports will be published before the end of 2026 for Module 6, investigating the adult social care sector and Module 7, investigating the test, trace and isolate systems. The remaining three reports – Module 8 ‘Children and Young People’, Module 9 ‘Economic Response’ and Module 10 ‘Impact on Society’ – will be published in the first half of 2027.
A full list of the Inquiry’s investigations can be found in the Terms of Reference.