This paper looks at the impact of COVID-19 on care workers and the people they care for in England. It explains why the care sector was so vulnerable to and ill-equipped for the pandemic and charts the delayed government response to it and how that was further impeded by a lack of integration between health and social care. It documents trade union campaigning on the health and safety of workers, the lack of or inadequate personal protective equipment (PPE), sick pay, accommodation and access to testing as well as their fight for longer-term reform, emphasising how the immediate problems in the sector are connected to its longer-term systemic issues. These campaigns have also focused on shifting public opinion about the status and value of care work and the need to address the structural inequalities that impact on care workers.