To find this revelation from an NHS carer shocking?

[Lizzie523]

I have a very vulnerable family member that I have not seen since covid. She is now in the late stages of alzheimers and have been starting to wonder if I will ever see her again.

Recently her carers had been visiting her whilst also going to look after a person with covid at the same time. Their highers up explicitly told them they must not inform us or other family members this was happening/the risk to her.

So far she has not caught covid but I dont feel confident about it not happening in future. AIBU to be beside myself with worry?

The solution will probably be reducing the amount of care each person receives and / or the number of visits. Unless you can increase then number of carers / district nurses / community midwives (which you can’t)

There are 20 people needing a care visit and 2 carers. 10 have covid, 10 don’t.

If carers visits are planned using proximity, and they each see a mix of covid and non covid patients, they can do 10 visits a day each. Everyone gets seen.

If they split the visits by covid and non covid the geography means they can only do 8 visits a day each (for example). What happens to the 19th and 20th people?

It gets even more worse if there are 15 covid and 5 non covid patients. One person sees the 5 non covid; sorted. The other person can still only manage 8 visits because of his the covid patients are spread out. So now there are 7 people without a care visit (because there are still only 2 carers).

If you increase the proportion of each day spent travelling you have to reduce the proportion spent on the actual visits.

Or maybe get a Time Turner?

I don’t understand the people who are responding to say the carer would lose their job if they told the other patients or their relatives, that someone they were caring for had Covid. If they give no details of the patient who has it, they aren’t breaking a confidentiality. If schools and workplaces are obliged to notify parents, students and staff of a Covid case, then surely the same should apply to carers treating vulnerable people? The notification should come from senior sources, not the carer, but it should be provided. Along with this notification should be details of all the steps that they are taking, to ensure the virus isn’t passed on to their other patients. Then their loved ones can make informed decisions on their care.
OP you are right to feel angry and worried and if I were you, I would want full details of the situation, risks and measures being taken the contain the virus.

baublesbaubleseverywhere You can't say "that's not true" when it is true for me. As I said it is my experience and I can't speak for the company in the OP or anyone else. But it is happening and I know my area isn't the only one. Again, not saying it's happening everywhere but it is certainly true round here.

@MrsMomoa

What makes you think you're in any way entitled to another person's private medical information?? Btw. You're not.

Yabu.

Given the information OP was given - I’d bet she was informed of this because the career didn’t think it’s right. No offers this kind of information about their policies/information unless they are whistle blowing

@WaterOffADucksCrack

christinarossetti19 I was just pointing out people can be informed without breaking confidentiality It won't change the situaton but openness and transparency is hugely important for maintaining relationships and trust between care providers and their service users and families. It also gives the service users/their loved ones the opportunity to ask any questions.

⬆️ This.

@NRE20

I don’t understand the people who are responding to say the carer would lose their job if they told the other patients or their relatives, that someone they were caring for had Covid. If they give no details of the patient who has it, they aren’t breaking a confidentiality. If schools and workplaces are obliged to notify parents, students and staff of a Covid case, then surely the same should apply to carers treating vulnerable people? The notification should come from senior sources, not the carer, but it should be provided. Along with this notification should be details of all the steps that they are taking, to ensure the virus isn’t passed on to their other patients. Then their loved ones can make informed decisions on their care. OP you are right to feel angry and worried and if I were you, I would want full details of the situation, risks and measures being taken the contain the virus.

I imagine the career is edging towards whistle blowing.

@Barmyfarmy

Thank you.

@WaterOffADucksCrack

christinarossetti19 I was just pointing out people can be informed without breaking confidentiality It won't change the situaton but openness and transparency is hugely important for maintaining relationships and trust between care providers and their service users and families. It also gives the service users/their loved ones the opportunity to ask any questions.

I agree. I wonder if the CQC would think this would be acceptable practice

@WaterOffADucksCrack it's not true that NHS staff change their masks every 30mins as you stated. I know that because I am NHS.

@Lizzie523 you’re totally losing perspective. As nurses we care for people with all sorts of infectious illness all the time. We move between patients using the correct PPE. Norovirus or e-coli can be just as lethal to those who are vulnerable. We don’t make these kinds of disclosures to patients. You really are missing the mark here

yabu they cannot tell you , its confidential.

@Cardiepockets, the OP, or immediate relatives should have already been informed by the carer’s management team, though. The fact that they haven’t communicated that they have an active Covid case, is concerning and without them speaking up, it suggests they have a lack of control over the situation.

@Cardiepockets this is not the same as a school / workplace notifying people of a covid case! When working as a carer / HPC, you wear PPE so you can work safely and avoid cross infection so there is no need to notify people.

If the carers aren't getting the correct PPE or are able to follow correct infection control procedures, then by all means they should contact the CQC or blow the whistle.

@baublesbaubleseverywhere do you work in the community ?

[quote frumpety]@baublesbaubleseverywhere do you work in the community ?[/quote]
Mainly, with some in-patient work too.

BTW in the NHS we don't get a new mask every 30 minutes
We do get one for each 'clinical environment' - so if you are working in a ward or in a clinic you wear the same one without taking it off (change apron and gloves between patients) - but if you have a meal break you would take mask off so should get a new one

On community each house counts as a new clinical environment so we get fresh masks each house

BTW I know I've been doing visits before, we screen beforehand to see if covid symptoms/positive, try to ensure that person is last (and if the visit can be delayed then it will be) however a colleague has been in a call - assumed everything was fine - still in PPE etc, was 2 visits further on when the woman rang her, very apologetic to say her test had just come back positive (routine screening)
Or person gets symptoms and tests positive the day after
Or you are the one who picks up the temperature

At this point in the pandemic it's safer to assume everyone is infectious or has been in contact

[quote baublesbaubleseverywhere]@Cardiepockets this is not the same as a school / workplace notifying people of a covid case! When working as a carer / HPC, you wear PPE so you can work safely and avoid cross infection so there is no need to notify people.

If the carers aren't getting the correct PPE or are able to follow correct infection control procedures, then by all means they should contact the CQC or blow the whistle. [/quote]
There is still the heavy risk of cross infection.

Hospital transmission rates are high. It’s an understandable risk.

But many of these elderly people have been isolating the entire time. My grandmother included. She’s 88 and no one has been in her house since March. She’s detested rapidity. I imagine this is the case for many many elderly patients.

What a kick in teeth to not see your family but a career bringing it in to your house as they have been round covid patients.

It really is unacceptable

I’ve got a solution to the problem, those in this thread disgusted by this practice should volunteer to give personal care to covid positive clients, so that professional carers can visit only negative clients.

@ForestNymph

I'm not surprised. I know an NHS worker who's colleague tested positive. They'd been working together the day before. She was still told to come to work and to only isolate if she had a positive test, and to only test if she was symptomatic.

Yeah pretty much this -

Also NHS. my colleague felt unwell at work and tested his temperature, it was up. Immediately informed management and was told to stop checking their own temperature, we’re here for the patients not ourselves.
We’d been to vulnerable patients that day - on chemo, elderly etc.

Colleague tested positive two days later. I was told to stay at work, working with other people and not go for a test unless I felt unwell.

They won’t inform you of other patients issues whether that’s right or not..

But would you expect to be told if they had the flu? Cdiff? D&V? Can all kill off the vulnerable?

If this wasn’t the case they’d need 20 million carers and your taxes / care contributions would be quadruple, just take a minute to think of the logistics involved

Cardiepockets it's very easy to say something is 'unacceptable', it's being able to provide an 'acceptable' solution that is the problem.

Much of the reality of health and social care is 'unacceptable'. Carers having 15 minute 'slots' allocated to help someone with personal care whether the person is ready to get up/go to bed or not. Carers being paid the minimum wage and not paid for their travelling time. Practically all home care now being outsourced from local authorities because their budgets have been cut so much that they cannot afford to continue to provide in-house care, which invariably offers better t&c for staff, thus better staff retention and continuity of care for vulnerable people.

The list goes on and on and on.

It's very easy to say that this is unacceptable. Not many people would disagree. What solutions would you offer?

And where do you draw the line about informing people in receipt of care about possible infections amongst other clients and staff? Flu, colds, HIV, Hepatitis, d&v, scabies, worms?

Do you actually know anything about the provision of health and social care?

Of course the carers visit covid positive patients as well. Who did you think was looking after them?
The only way to ensure your relative is not at risk of having the virus brought in to her is to look after her yourself or get a carer that is exclusively for her.

Cardiepockets many older people have no choice but to let carers into their home. Without other humans helping them to wash, dress, prepare food, use the toilet, prompt about medication, notice if Mrs Smith's cut on her hand looks infected or whether Mr Jones hasn't been to the loo for 24 hours or a hundred other things, they would be either much more ill or dead.

Yes, many older people have deteriorated rapidly this year, my mother included. This is the fault of the virus, not health and social care staff without who my mother would certainly have died last week.

So if you had been told about the Covid patient what would you have done differently? Cared for your relative yourself or Still just expect everyone else to do it for you and treat you all like you are the only ones...??? What does changing the care package do? Or do you mean change care provider? I think YABU

Care companies are now being told that they aren’t allowed to delay hospital discharges by refusing to support COVID positive patients at home. The councils are telling them this so they have no choice. As long as they are wearing full PPE I don’t see how it’s any different to caring for both positive and negative patients in hospitals. If you have an issue with this I suggest you take it up with the government not the individual care companies as they now have no choice