"Unprecedented" visiting restrictions imposed on care homes during the Covid-19 pandemic caused "incalculable harm to residents", the pandemic probe has found.
Residents likened their experience of the pandemic to being in "prison" while others reported feeling "abandoned" and "isolated".
The strictness and length of restrictions caused "immense emotional harm" to care home residents and their loved ones, "often resulting in significant decline in the health and wellbeing of residents", the UK Covid-19 Public Inquiry said.
Inquiry chairwoman Baroness Heather Hallett highlighted how some people were not allowed to be with their dying loved ones, adding: "Many remain wracked by guilt that they do not deserve to carry."
The inquiry’s latest report, which examines the impact on the care sector during the crisis, also found that visiting restrictions "at times" led to limited access to medical care for residents.
But the report acknowledges that in absence of tests for the virus, treatment, vaccines and limited personal protective equipment meant that visiting restrictions were one way to try and mitigate the spread of Covid-19.
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