To think care home bosses should take some responsibility for Covid infections in homes

[JustAsking1837]

This is just in response to criticism over Boris Johnson's comments. Sorry if this has already been done but I've not found any threads on this surprisingly. I am no fan of Boris or the Government but day in day out I have listened to the press savagely criticise the Government no matter what it does or doesn't do and is blamed for everything. However everyone is in uproar when Boris has suggested that many care homes may have not done everything they should have to prevent infections. I am not necessarily saying they are to blame, as I don't know, but think it should be fair game for discussion.

Absolutely correct OP, clearly they weren't following the guidelines.

They should have been taking their residents on coach trips to Durham to check their eyesight or organising some convalescent time in the Greek sunshine.

But they didn't! Bad form.

The guidelines at the start were changing several times in one week - I think at one point they even changed twice in one day, this is within the NHS - we couldn't keep up with what was changing, never mind having the supply - after the initial complete cock up it leveled out and I'm sure it did with care homes.

And yes COVID got into our care homes because there was no strategy and they were forgotten in the focus on not overwhelming the NHS- people admitted with COVID, lack of PPE in the early days and lack of any sensible guidance is what happened - all at the hands of the government, not care home bosses

A friend lives in a care home due to an aquired brain injury.

As its a council run care facility they were forced by the government to admit residents from hospital who had not been tested for covid. They also had no choice but to use agency staff due to their own staff isolating with symptoms, the alternative was knowingly neglecting residents.

As his facility isn’t for the elderly of dimentia patients they were not able to access testing. When they attempted to isolate the home early and stop admissions they were threatened with shut down by the LA.

So lets see, the government forced them to take untested residents from hospital, the government chose not to give them access to testing, the government threatened to shut them down when they attempted to stop new admissions. How is that the fault of the care facility?

If someone has spent time around TB patients they are not sent to care facilities, if they have runny stools they aren’t sent to care facilities. Yet people could be on a ward with covid patients and homes were not allowed to say no.

At least the government have eased the pressure on their pensions bill.

@Namechanger0800

I have some inside information about this - there are STILL care homes who are refusing to test residents and staff. If the CEO of a large number of care homes say no, they do not get tested. This is criminal. All care home should have to test staff and residents at least once. I know it is difficult and stressful for residents, particularly dementia patients, but so is dying.

That is bs - it's not up to care home bosses if staff & residents get tested or not. All staff can get tested at any of the testing centres even without symptoms without needing permission from their manager. Many residents in care homes have capacity to consent or refuse to testing - that's their decision and mandatory testing of all is not legally required.

@namechanger0800

If you genuinely had information like this, your moral instinct should tell you to whistleblow. Call CQC. Otherwise kindly cut the lies.

Yes I believe you are unreasonable.
The government did not give care homes adequate support in terms of ensuring there were adequate PPE and Tests available, they did not detailed give guidance for care home until far too late and initially said care homes were unlikely to have an issue with Covid. Many care home staff have spoken of residents coming to them from hospitals without having been tested or with Covid and homes being pressured to take them to ease potential pressure on hospitals.

I think it’s a bloody cheek for Johnson for target care homes and suggest it was staff not following guidance when the guidance they got was too little and too late. Some care homes that locked down early stopping visits and limiting staff under their own steam.....that should have been the advice all along.

I’m not surprised he’s tried to scapegoat care homes and now they’re been back lash he’s backtracking in his comment. Urgh vile!

One problem highlighted here (May);

"Trafford council’s sick pay provision for care workers has been praised as an example for other Greater Manchester councils to follow."

"The commendation came as a care worker told BBC Radio Manchester he couldn't afford to take time off work if he needed to during the COVID-19 outbreak."

"A BBC survey found 80 per cent of carers are in the same boat - they would not get paid if they had to self-isolate."

"The worker claimed some carers are going into work with coronavirus symptoms, because they feel like they don’t have a choice."

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/care-worker-claims-people-working-18252705

I think the most shocking thing to me is how before the lockdown GP’s were contacting residents of nursing/residential homes to let them know they would not be visiting any suspected Covid cases and would not be treating any suspected Covid residents by transferring to hospital. DNAR’s were also looked at as part of this process.
As for PPE, the NHS was struggling to get enough supplies so nursing homes had no chance. Plus staff there tend to have far less training as it’s not centrally run and are on minimal wage.

It's a Pandemic. We still know virtually nothing about this sodding virus. We still only have really invasive tests (I'm dreading having that thing stuck four inches up my nose again in six weeks). People in care homes are looked after by people who live in families and travel on public transport. There is better practice and worse practice. We can question or blame various choices that government, organisations, businesses or individuals make. But keeping it out of care homes is a tall order. There was a care home person on radio 4 earlier - they locked down early, they split their homes into bubbles, they asked staff to live in, they procured PPE early. They still lost 60% of the residents in one home (may they rest in peace). And yes, people were discharged from hospital without test results, but bear in mind that hospital staff were also terrified at that time of giving someone the virus in hospital, which is also a dangerous environment for transmission. There are few right answers or risk free decisions. However I do hope people in the industry are preparing very best practices now on the basis of what we have learnt.

Not sure if this case has progressed any further;

"Care watchdog starts legal action over home with 30 of 34 residents testing positive for Covid-19."
"The Care Inspectorate has applied to the sheriff court to cancel the registration of Home Farm Care Home in Portree, on the Isle of Skye."

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/14/care-watchdog-starts-legal-action-home-30-34-residents-testing/

I don't doubt that many Care Homes were under tremendous pressure to accept elderly clients from hospital that hadn't been tested and consequently died of Cov.19 and for that, they shouldn't be blamed.
Many care homes however, didn't have a very good reputation prior to the outbreak.
The Care Quality Commission have put some homes into special measures following inspections. Temple Court, Kettering is one such home. Their report published in June exposed a series of major failings where residents were dehydrated, malnourished and living in filthy conditions. Some residents had unreported and unexplained injuries. The Care Home is subject to a Police investigation.

16 residents sadly died from Civic 19

I remember that the government made a complete balls-up of obtaining duff PPE from Turkey - how the hell were care homes supposed to do better? Many are small businesses, they aren't all part of big chains. But even the big chains would have had difficulties. As to staffing issues, what's the alternative? Care home residents can't get by without their carers, and you can't just get them in off the street, especially in the middle of a pandemic.

Really?!
More like Matt Hancock needs to take responsibility and go to prison for a very long time

I remember that the government made a complete balls-up of obtaining duff PPE from Turkey

"the British ambassador to Ankara Sir Dominick Chilcott said:"

“Stories in the UK media that 400K items of PPE sent from Turkey are unusable are untrue. A small number of gowns from a private supplier have failed tests. But more gowns from that supplier have passed tests and are suitable for use in the NHS.”

“The #UK government remains very grateful to the #Turkish government for its support of the UK’s requirements for PPE,” he added."

Also our home is small. We locked down so early. The local authority threatened to cancel our contract. However we have mostly private residents so we called their bluff knowing there aren't enough care homes for the number of residents in the area so they wouldn't be able to. Our contract didn't get cancelled. However if we had mostly local authority residents we probably would have been to worried to do so.

*Covid

I remember reading somewhere about a month ago that covid deaths in care homes were concentrated in about 25% of care homes. Does that mean that 75% of homes were coping with it in a better way?

The care homes that had managed best to avoid it are the ones where the staff moved in, I think it is a combination on residents arriving from hospitals and also of staff coming in to work whilst living in the community and in some cases working also in the community..

No one new what we were dealing with at the onset of this pandemic, people were sent to care homes to clear hospital beds. Testing was stopped due to lack of kits, so certain groups were prioritised, not a problem but did not include care homes. Let’s be honest here so the elderly took the biggest hit, a lot of people didn’t care, increased revenue for the government as wouldn’t have to pay pension etc everybody wins. However it is the government claims that they did everything they could and then blaming the care homes is awful.

DW works in care staff have been rotated between many services no effort at all to keep same staff to same service.
Some staff in different clients house and then care home in same day
Plenty of ppe but not allowed to use like ( not about supply it was about cost)
Members of staff with temp/cough told to come into work or face discipline.
no effort to up basic infection control measures
So yes plenty did not follow the guidance plenty did go above and beyond and some just REFUSED to take discharged patients.

My friend manages a care home and moved in for a prolonged period (weeks, not months) to protect her residents, despite having a young family at home. I’ve heard similar from other sources of care home staff going above and beyond and it must be galling to hear the PM’s comments

Scrapthatthen totally agree. This is a once in a lifetime event and no one could predict how it would go (and still don’t). Pointing fingers and shouting who did what wrong doesn’t solve anything but learning from it does.

Let’s be honest, most care homes are just focused on money and couldn’t give a toss about it’s staff or patients. I’m guessing if they were given guidelines on actions needed which would eat into their profits, that they would ignore those guidelines if they felt they could get away with it. I’ve had experience of a few care homes over the last decade with relatives; enough to be of the mind that if I ever get to the stage that I need to be in one, I’d rather be euthanised. I’m not saying the Government handled the situation as well as it could have, but I’m under no illusions that the care home owners did their best either.

The problem is that care homes seem to be being lumped into one pot, it's clear that there are those that did everything they could and others who just exploit their staff and have poor standards. I thought there was a body that monitored this?

If a relative of mine was in a £1000+ a week care home frankly I would expect them to pay what it took to get the proper PPE. I would also add that I am quite surprised care home owners weren't more on this. Many on this website were tracking this early and buying masks etc.

It is shocking that councils made care homes take people from hospitals without testing, I'm amazed there hasn't been more about this in the press. I really feel for care workers, a very very difficult job in difficult conditions.