Shocked about death in care homes **MNHQ content warning**

[happyandsingle]

Just this.Cannot believe how care home residents and staff have been thrown to the wolves.
Everything focused on the NHS it's like the elderly didnt matter.
Feel ashamed how we treat our elderly and even if the government act now in my opinion it's to late as to many lives have been lost.
To think the goverment need to be held accountable for this.

But do the goverment not have any duty of care?

Look, let’s face reality. As @Hercwasonaroll says, by definition, being in a care home means you are already frail, in poor health and living with a lowered immune system. Even a bad cold can be the literal nail in the coffin for some residents. Add to that that most careworkers don’t do the job because they love it or really care about the residents. They do it because they’re largely unskilled, often have poor English, and struggle to find work elsewhere. Their education generally isn’t the best, they know little about cross-contamination and infection control and wouldn’t really be bothered to observe it even if they did - because see above, it’s just a job to them.

There will now be a flood of posters claiming to be career careworkers with multiple degrees who adore their jobs, but they aren’t representative of the industry as a whole. I’ve visited relatives in care homes, I’ve seen how uninterested the majority of the staff are in their work and in observing even basic hygiene practices. Care homes could be given all the PPE in the world and many staff still wouldn’t be using it properly. That’s why it’s tearing through homes.

@VeryQuaintIrene well said . I do hate all this generalisation just to prove a point .

I have just lost two relatives in a care home .

The carers were absolutely lovely. They were well looked after .

The Manager however was not my cup of tea..

I am not blaming the government because the manager was responsible for looking after his staff . They did shut quickly but if you think of the level of physical contact with each resident it is easy to see how it can spread. Also the staff were going home to families so probably bought it in , but could have been not showing symptoms.

The poor staff were terrified and working long hours.

The manager sent his condolences with the bill.

Have to agree that it attracts a lot of foreign nationals sadly some that only do the job because quite frankly it's the only job they can get.

How do we know the staff did not have PPE ?

I imagine it would be difficult to treat dementia patients with visors and masks for everything they have to do to care for patients. ?

We have the PPE, managers and deputy are working on the floor helping out, due to staff been off sick.

The part I work in, do not have any sick residents.

Up until now it has been all about the NHS (my hat goes out to them).

Realistically isn't it also a factor that many elderly or vulnerable people in care homes are already frail/unwell/suffering from an underlying illness or infirmity and therefore more susceptible to any aggressive virus? Plus they require hands on care and are therefore unable to physically isolate?

I also think some people have no idea of how much PPE is needed to totally stop cross contamination. There literally aren't enough gloves in the world.

Care work requires contact with other humans. Short of having a full change of clothes, gloves, masks etc between patients, you can't guarantee being covid free. Even then you could be an asymptomatic carrier.

NHS hospitals sent patients back to care homes who had covid 19. That is how many have got infected.

ichifanny: "Sorry to say but the care in carehomes is always awful"

That's just not true, and an insult to all those staff who are currently doing their utmost to help residents throughout this crisis.

babbi thank you so much X

Care homes were always going to be hit hard because the elderly and those with underlying health conditions are one of the most vulnerable groups to it. Care homes have both generally.
That said, it's about time that a light was shone directly on the care industry, and more specifically, the people at the top of the tree, and the 'supporting' agencies.
Care is a business, and the purpose of a business is to make money. I don't think that money should be made off the back of vulnerability.
Many of the inspections in place are box ticking exercises, and even when poorly rated, the process of improvement is far too slow.
There are bad care workers out there, but there's good ones too. Unfortunately the good ones aren't listened to because it'll cause a problem. And all too often the care staff are made scapegoats. I reported a manager for neglect and abuse of a resident. I was sacked, and the incident covered up. Luckily the family weren't willing to let it go and they pursued it, manager sacked and I was reinstated. But no one wanted to listen to me.

This happens every time panorama or similar do an undercover in a care home, there's a public outcry for a few weeks and then it's forgotten again.
I'm saddened that this is happening but probably like most that have been or are in care, not surprised at all.

It's not just the UK most countries are struggling to cope with the ever increasing burden of the elderly and frail
even before covid we did not have the resources to properly care for them,

RogueV I entirely disagree I'm afraid. I'm a social worker.

Local authorities and the NHS delegate their responsibilities for care to private companies because in theory it is cheaper than running those services in house.

The Care Act essentially places a duty on Local Authorities to meet the needs of adults requiring care. In normal times they do this by contracting others to provide the care, in a global pandemic they still have a duty of care to people and that includes ensuring that private contractors can access PPE to keep people we have placed with them safe.

The NHS has long paid for people to receive nursing care by proxy in nursing homes rather than in hospital to free up acute bed capacity. Again, they have a responsibility to ensure that the nurses and carers they have contracted to look after NHS patients in the community have the same access to PPE as nurses and carers on an acute hospital ward.

Michelle behind the till in the co-op can socially distance behind a plastic screen from her customers who are choosing to take the risk to go shopping.

It's impossible for Christine the carer to socially distance whilst providing intimate continence care to an elderly man who thinks she's trying to kill him.

Not all private companies are equal in a global pandemic.

The working women on the frontline shouldn't be in the firing line because their bosses pay them to care rather than operate a checkout.

So to stop this happening any cre home patient in hospital should have been tested and if they had covid 19 they should not have been sent back to the care home.
That is really basic infection control. But that is not what happened. Elderly infected people were sent back and other residents were infected via care staff.
The appalling death rate then became inevitable.

@B1rdbra1n We have had the resources to care for them, we just were not prepared to pay for it.
This amount of deaths will reduce the amount of government money needed to fund social care. I am sure that featured in their actions.

The care in care homes is not always bad. How insulting to people who work in that role.

I work in a (LA owned) care home, we are very caring towards our service users. All the staff are lovely, they enjoy their roles. The main complaint is management and funding cuts. PPE is sparse, we have masks and sleeveless plastic aprons, alongside the usual plastic gloves for personal care.

There is a care home 2 Streets from me where it's been reported up to 15 have died but it was being kept hush. I have found this very upsetting, it's as if those people did not deserve to live or be mentioned.

So to stop this happening any cre home patient in hospital should have been tested and if they had covid 19 they should not have been sent back to the care home.
That is really basic infection control. But that is not what happened. Elderly infected people were sent back and other residents were infected via care staff.
The appalling death rate then became inevitable.

It was (I've been out of care a few years now) common practice with illness like norovirus, MRSA and flu.
They would be discharged back to us (and sometimes we weren't even told because we aren't NOK, and NOK or the residents didn't tell us) with these which would then rip through the home, staff and residents alike.

@unworthie I had no idea that already happened with MRSA.
They are clearly saying old people don't matter. Because care homes are not set up to barrier nurse people with highly infectious and deadly diseases. They just arent.

Some of the homes are greedy and charge residents a fortune to stay there. I've worked for many pharmacies and the homes always expect the pharmacy to supply the fridge for the cold storage drugs, medicine trollies and anything else they fancy like thermometers, blood pressure monitors free of charge. Pharmacies do this as they have a guaranteed number of prescriptions by dispensing all the home's drugs. The NHS pay less to pharmacies now for prescriptions so it's no longer cost effective so a lot have put their foot down and said they're not doing it anymore.

Sister works in a private care home her boss has been fab and they have plenty of PPE. She said they made sure they got a large order in when this all kicked off.

Spanish here. I believe 25% of people that has died in Spain was in a care home so I’m not surprised. They’re quite vulnerable most of them so when one catches it it’s quite easy that it goes pass from one to another one :(

Im

I think this is a fairly calculated decision. Italy admitted large numbers of elderly covid patients that had poor survival chances and then their ITU capacity was overwhelmed - so overall perhaps more people died. It's clear that here there has been a push not to admit care home residents, and it is probably not compassionate or appropriate to be ventilating the very frail. However, leaving them in care homes with inadequate infection control condemns further residents to become infected. Keeping them out of hospital keeps the death figures more palatable (it looks like they may be at least 50% more than published once deaths in homes are factored in) the reporting lag for ONS is very convenient.

Nobody is saying they should be ventilated, but isolated and given care yes. Rather than sent back to a care home to die and infect others.

I have a close family member who works in a care home. The home is not cheap but it is a charity so some funding is available to help with fees.
It is a modern building with excellent facilities and they have PPE. No one has been discharged from hospital into the home and yet the home still has Covid. The only way it could have got in is via the staff as the home has been on lockdown since a week or so before the country was.
My family member thinks the high number of agency staff used could be part of the problem as the staff could be in a different home each day of the week and every home is not equal in standards. The regular staff are not using public transport, having their temperature taken before each shift, changing outdoor clothes into a provide tunic before each shift and using PPE. With agency staff the last home they was in could be just as good but a lot won’t.