The Welsh Government has been reported to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) over delays to Covid-19 testing in care homes across the country.
The Older People's Commissioner for Wales, Heléna Herklots, has said that comprehensive testing in care homes was "too slow", and is questioning whether elderly residents' "right to life" was breached.
The commissioner, who operates independently from the Welsh government, has now raised the issue with the EHRC.
This morning, Welsh health minister Vaughan Gething defended his administration's testing response, saying he "didn't recognise" a breach and that government policy had been based on scientific advice.
There has been widespread criticism of the decision to discharge some elderly untested patients from hospitals to homes across the UK in the early stages of the pandemic to free up beds.
The policy is believed to have contributed to the spread of the virus in care homes.
But Mr Gething told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “The advice and the evidence that we had at the time was that people who weren’t symptomatic, there wasn’t a value in testing them.
“We changed the approach that we took on testing people who were leaving hospital on 22 April onwards.”
Office for National Statistics figures show 27 per cent of all Covid-19 deaths in Wales since March 23 have been care home residents.This does not include those care home residents who died after being transferred to hospital.
