The timelines will be worked through once we see the options. As we discussed earlier, families, some of whom I have met, have very reasonable and important questions. Essentially, they want to know what happened. In some cases, their loved ones died during the first Covid surge and they were faced with unimaginable difficulties in desperately trying to find out what was going on when not able to access the nursing home. All of the nursing homes came under enormous pressure but it was particularly bad in certain homes. Families want answers and access to the truth and they must have it. The Government and I want to find a process whereby those families can get those answers without the whole thing becoming legalistic and taking years with the risk that they may not ultimately get those answers. We have various options that we have seen work well in the past. For example, Dr. Scally's inquiry into CervicalCheck worked well. This was not a public inquiry. Dr. Scally took private testimony and produced what most of us agree was a very good and very useful report.
I know that there are people who are looking for a public inquiry but the problem with a public inquiry is that those involved, including those running the nursing homes, take legal advice, as they should. In the past, we have often seen legal teams go to the High Court to seek injunctions. We are then in a very difficult position because it becomes increasingly difficult to ask the questions that need to be asked and to get answers to them. This is further complicated by the fact that there are now quite a number of active court cases ongoing. As we all know, the legal advice that some of these nursing homes will get is that they should not participate. We need to find a mechanism that avoids all of that and gets the families the answers they deserve.