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.

I've not said anything to bash care workers. I have referred to care home bosses, those who make the strategic decisions within the care home

These decisions will be based on government guidance, which has changed almost weekly. If you couldn't order PPE and several covid positive residents were transferred to you from hospital, what would you do? It's impossible.

Care staff deserve a medal for working in field-hospital type conditions for £900 a month. Instead they get a sneer from the PM.

It was

Nice try.

The French government stepped in early to stop profiteering on critical supplies, your Google result doesn't say otherwise.

The UK government left it to market forces so small care agencies were being asked to pay tens of pounds for cheap every day essentials. But you keep shilling.

The French government stepped in early
They did. 6th March;

"France has forced a face mask manufacturer to cancel a major UK order as the coronavirus-inspired scramble for protective gear intensifies."

"The National Health Service ordered millions of masks from Valmy SAS near Lyon earlier this year as COVID-19 threatened."

"We are facing a big problem: who to prioritise" explained company director Nicolas Brillat."The requisition does not allow any wiggle room for us to deliver to the NHS, but it is complicated because the NHS was the first client to order and uses our masks all year long."

www.euronews.com/2020/03/06/coronavirus-french-protective-mask-manufacturer-scraps-nhs-order-to-keep-masks-in-france

They did. 6th March;

Still not responding to the point I made about price controls.

Our government also blocked exports, just later and slower. They also gave many millions on government money to suppliers with no track record, which were not required to bid competitively and who failed to deliver. Rather like Grayling's ferry company.

You are doing a sterling job of highlighting our failures. Keep on trucking.

you didn't distinguish care home owners/managers from the staff

I think I've been quite clear on this throughout the thread. Even the title refers to care home bosses

My lovely f’n’law died from covid in a carehome at Easter. I completely hold the government and especially Boris responsible. The government was so short on PEE and testing kits they were actively promoting the guidelines that PEE was not needed in carehomes. Testing was a struggle. The GPs wouldn’t enter my f’n’law’s carehome and any patients sent to A&E were sent back. The hospitals were told to keep space for the expected increase in beds needed for younger patients. Plus his nursing home had non tested patients from hospitals sent to his nursing home.
No oxygen was offered when he got sick - I rang the nhs oxygen supply place myself and the general feeling I absorbed were people were told not to waste resources on nursing homes.
The nursing staff were run off their feet bless them. And what with some of them isolating, agency staff were moving between homes plugging the gaps but unfort sometimes also spreading Covid.
How do you keep dementia patients with potential Covid isolated? You give them extra drugs and put the sides of their beds up I am guessing.
The nursing homes have a very hard job normally without been strung up by Boris’ poor planning. It’s appauling they are being blamed.

It would be nearly impossible to keep dementia residents in their rooms, if they tested positive to the virus. You cant drug them up or put the side up on their beds, they are a high risk of falling and breaking something. They would then end up having to go into hospital.

We have not had any agency carers, we have had to take on extra shifts.

The government is getting blamed for everything because it is their bloody fault. They are LITERALLY the ones making the decisions (or Dominic Cummings is anyway), the laws and the guidance. The buck stops with them.

ittakes2
No oxygen was offered when he got sick - I rang the nhs oxygen supply place myself and the general feeling I absorbed were people were told not to waste resources on nursing homes.

BBC report; "What's going wrong in Sweden's care homes?"

"But representatives of care homes in other parts of Europe have told the BBC they do not share Swedish critics' concerns about a lack of access to treatment."

"In the UK, the National Care Association says it believes care has been available for Covid-19 patients "no matter how old or sick" they are."
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52704836

You are so wrong. My partner works in health policy/regulation. A sort of arms length org. From v early on care home trade bodies and providers were crying out for more testing, ppe and residents to be discharged to temp accommodation or recovery wards so as not to pass it on to others in the home. The gov actually denied and covered up deaths and cases for a good while. My partner was obvs privy to the info from work.

What should they have done beds where needed in hospital care homes had the beds Boris should of let all patients being moved tested he never! how is that care homes fault? should they have refuse to help?

Cav

20,000 CH residents have died in the UK, in addition another 12000 excess deaths within the CH sector and we still, across the 7 day rolling average, have around 100 CV deaths each and every day.

It dwarfs Sweden's issues, which are irrelevant to this thread, though i do expect Johnson to shift blame onto Sweden in the near future and the OP to set up another thread titled "Is pickled Herring to blame for CH deaths in the UK?"

C8H10N4O2
Keep on trucking.

"Sale of Covid-19 masks in French supermarkets sparks controversy."

"French supermarkets have promised to put millions of masks on sale to protect against Covid-19. Some health professionals are asking for an explanation about these deliveries after weeks of shortages and rationing."

"Seven associations for health professionals, including those for doctors, midwives and nurses, expressed their “dismay” in a letter on April 30 over the sale of thousands of masks in supermarkets, authorised against a backdrop of “shortages” for health professionals."

“How is it possible that our carers have not been able to be equipped with masks when we are announcing with great fanfare the staggering figures of masks on sale to the public?” they asked."

www.france24.com/en/20200505-covid-19-sale-of-masks-in-french-supermarkets-sparks-controversy

Our government also blocked exports, just later and slower.

"European Commission warns member states on mask export ban."

www.ft.com/content/1bbdfbd0-5fbe-11ea-b0ab-339c2307bcd4

"EU fails to persuade France, Germany to lift coronavirus health gear controls."

www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-eu/eu-fails-to-persuade-france-germany-to-lift-coronavirus-health-gear-controls-idUSKBN20T166

It dwarfs Sweden's issues, which are irrelevant to this thread

Sweden was inconsequential to my point;
"In the UK, the National Care Association says it believes care has been available for Covid-19 patients "no matter how old or sick" they are."

ffs

"In the UK, the National Care Association says it believes care has been available for Covid-19 patients "no matter how old or sick" they are."

Yes they received care, no one is doubting that but the numbers of deaths, in the care home which are not hospitals, would indicate that they did not get the care they deserved.

Several media investigations have been had into this and found care to be lacking.

You were the one who linked to Sweden lol!

YABU. You clearly know little about this.
Most care homes have local authority funded residents so the government absolutely are legally and morally responsible. The ultimate duty of care lies with the state and we have let down these highly vulnerable individuals and care staff.

jasjas1973
You were the one who linked to Sweden lol!

(ittakes2 "No oxygen was offered when he got sick-I rang the nhs oxygen supply place myself and the general feeling I absorbed were people were told not to waste resources on nursing homes.")

Perhaps I should have copied more of the article - I had momentarily forgotten that most posters on here don't bother to read links;

"Mikael Fjällid, a Swedish private consultant in anaesthetics and intensive care, says he believes "a lot of lives" could have been saved if more patients had been able to access hospital treatment, or if care home workers were given increased responsibilities to administer oxygen themselves, instead of waiting for specialist Covid-19 response teams or paramedics."

"How do other countries prioritise patients?"
"Sweden is not alone in asking healthcare workers to consider the fragility of patients when deciding whether or not to send them to hospital."

"But representatives of care homes in other parts of Europe have told the BBC they do not share Swedish critics' concerns about a lack of access to treatment."

"In the UK, the National Care Association says it believes care has been available for Covid-19 patients "no matter how old or sick" they are."

What Boris said was untrue. Lots of people are coming out and saying this. It’s typical Boris to lie. He does it all the time.

I do feel the care homes were shafted by the NHS and not enough testing. They shouldn’t have accepted any residents who had been in hospital. They should have locked down. We now know hospitals and care homes were the main hot spots. So the care homes were put in an impossible position to ‘save our NHS’. By doing that they killed thousands.

As has been said, PPE procurement was such a fail here that care homes never stood a chance. Whether they are run by investors makes no odds, because the government took control of the market (poorly), and they were left with huge bills for basic supplies to keep their staff safe. It's shocking.

Clavinova

I forgot some posters don't read what is written.

Swedens situation is irrelevant, we live the UK, some terrible things have happened across the globe in respect to the elderly but why is there this fascination to compare ourselves with the very worst countries and not Germany, Korea ?

20k CV deaths IN care homes (plus 12k excess deaths) would indicate these poor people did not get suitable care not that they got no care.

We were asked to clap for the NHS. No one for weeks thought about care homes. They were not mentioned.

Boris has denied that we knew how the virus spread. He is lying about that. There is ample evidence the government knew. They didn’t get protection into care homes and the NHS discharged the elderly into care homes to “save the NHS” and clear the wards. NHS management, lack of PPE and second rate care services for the elderly caused by lack of investment are to blame.

It’s not the fault of staff. It’s the fault of chronic under funding and lack of ring fenced NI (or similar) money for care when people are old. We called if the Granny Tax when Teresa May tried to introduce it. The Dilnot report into care funding was 10 years ago. Governments won’t do anything because it’s called out as an unwelcome tax. It’s the only way to get better care though. Instead of individual responsibility, we need collective responsibility. That means a dedicated tax.

jasjas1973
Swedens situation is irrelevant, we live in the UK

I have already posted;
"Sweden was inconsequential to my point" - my post was regarding the availability of oxygen in care homes/nursing homes.

why is there this fascination to compare ourselves with the very worst countries and not Germany, Korea?

We are constantly being compared to Germany and [South] Korea. I often post about Germany and South Korea myself.

Which policies would you like us to copy?

April - "The success behind South Korea’s fast action toward containing the spread of COVID-19 is in its legal access to private information of credit card transactions, according to observers. Despite disputes on infringing on individuals’ privacy, the method is being touted in and out of the country for its efficiency, as it can take just 10 minutes to track the movement of patients infected with the virus."
www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20200408000918

"[the] workers are almost entirely migrant labourers from Bulgaria, Poland and Romania.They live clustered together in workers' accommodation and now they are living under strict quarantine."

"Around 2,000 staff living in the nearby village of Verl [Germany] are now literally fenced off from the world, with metal gates erected in front of their high-rise flats and terraced houses."

"Police and security officials keep guard. No-one can leave for at least a week."

"We're European as well. We have rights. You can't put us behind a fence," one Bulgarian man shouts."

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-53177628

20k CV deaths IN care homes (plus 12k excess deaths) would indicate these poor people did not get suitable care not that they got no care.

Up to date statistics from Germany here:

"IfSG (e.g. facilities for the care of older, disabled, or other persons in
need of care, homeless shelters, community facilities for asylum seekers, repatriates and refugees as well as other mass accommodation and prisons)" -

Cared for/accommodated in facility:
Tested positive 17,972
Hospitalised 4,077, Deaths 3,557

Occupation in facility:
Tested positive 9,933
Hospitalised 420, Deaths 43

www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/N/Neuartiges_Coronavirus/Situationsberichte/2020-07-02-en.pdf?__blob=publicationFile

I think we all know we were crap! I don’t see the point of comparisons right now. This is about what Boris said and the fact he was lying. Again. We cannot turn the clock back but he’s blamed others for the Government’s incompetence. It’s wholly wrong.

It would be more interesting to know how old age care is funded in Germany. Death tolls don’t tell us that. We need to learn, fast, about how we improve social care and the heat method of funding.