Coronavirus and care homes

[WinnieHarlow]

Having just read the awful situation where 15 residents in a care home have died, surely allowing loved ones to visit could exacerbate this situation? Its a dreadful situation. Is a solution to seek alternative accommodation for the loved one in care, until Covid is over?

@tattooedmummy1 But - for whatever reason - the government are failing. That situation in Wales is appalling, and also the case recently where someone was arrested for trying to remove their mother.

Yes, they are failing. Massively.
And care home residents have been left by the wayside since day one. Thrown under the bus to ease the strain on the NHS.

@tattooedmummy1 if the solution was to bring my mum.home to live with me then I would! It would not be safe for her apart from anything else and I certainly could not afford to give up work.

@tattooedmummy1 oops sorry tagged the wrong person , that was meant for the op.

also the case recently where someone was arrested for trying to remove their mother

She was attested for assaulting a staff member. She was dearrested once she calmed down.

When someone has dementia to the extent that they lack capacity, there are safeguarding controls around their care. A relative cannot simply remove them without there being checks that the move is in the best interests of the individual.

• arrested, not attested!

@WinnieHarlow

My original point was to say that - as people are desperately concerned about the mental health and lack of visitation options in care homes, shouldn’t the option of taking that loved one out of a care home for temporary care within the home through Covid - be considered more/made a more viable option/given more financial support?

First of all, the older people aren’t possessions who can be taken away. Anyone who fits your definition would presumably have capacity and a place to go. They can give notice to the home and go live with their family. They aren’t in prison.

All effort if made to keep people at home or with their family before admission to a home. When they do go into it is either because that’s a choice they can rescind or because they need the type of care offered there.

Placing a parent or family member in a home is a dreadfully painful experience for all. It’s not a decision made lightly or for an easy life. In normal times you are visiting every day and spending hours there.

This current situation makes the situation even worse. Because of course nobody wants the risk of passing on the virus. Whilst they understand the rationale of the restrictions, they know how cruel they are. The last thing they need is to be guilt tripped or shamed because they don’t try to remove a frail old person from the best place they can be.

OP you sound patronising and judgemental. Given your complete lack of understanding of the true pain of this situation it’s best to stop whilst you are ahead.

But if you just can’t stop then no tour proposition is daft given we are weeks away from being able to vaccinate care home residents and staff. Which is the amount of time it would take to set up whatever home care arrangement you think would work.

@LemonTT - the article I’ve linked to is expressing it far better than I can

Also - this www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/2020/may/04/coronavirus-fears-leading-families-to-remove-relatives-from-uk-care-homes

Practitioners should work with families and friends of the person deprived of liberty and make creative use of available resources including family, friends and community. They should use funding already at the disposal of local authorities as well as urgently accessing emergency funding by central government. Social workers should also explore home care, given one carer in a home setting is safer coronavirus-wise than multiple carers in congregated care.

To quote from the article.

Gather a list of all residents deprived of their liberty in care homes and hospitals your area.
Contact each resident and ask them how they are doing and whether they have any relatives they could live with while this virus persists. Explain that you will contact these relatives and friends. An inability to talk to you about relatives and friends should not prevent you from contacting them.
Contact the relatives and friends and ask whether they can provide interim accommodation. This may be a life-saving measure. In ordinary times, people may not be willing to provide such accommodation, but the whole country is stepping up and people are volunteering to help others in so many ways. A “coronavirus planning check list” is provided below, to guide conversations you have with relatives. You can also direct them to the government guidance for those who provide unpaid care to friends or family.
Contact homeshare and shared lives services in your area and ask for their support to help you move people out of care homes.
It may not be possible for an occupational therapist to conduct an assessment in the relative or friend’s home, so this will have to be done via video conferencing. Much can be done in this way, asking questions about whether the home is barrier-free, has stairs and so on.
Likewise, any training that the relative or friend requires to enhance their capabilities to meet their loved-one’s needs can be done via video conferencing.
Telephone the registered manager of each care home in your area, and advise them to reach out to residents’ families and friends to make arrangements to get residents out on a temporary basis.
Reach out to families and friends of care home residents directly. Put out public information to people who live in the area (for example through social media and local radio and television) advising families to contact their loved-ones in care homes and make arrangements wherever possible, to offer interim accommodation and care. Frame the message in a positive way: this is an opportunity to save a life and make a real difference.
Speak to colleagues about how the local authority could provide funding for professional care staff to go into the home of the relative or friend to support their loved-one.
Inform care home residents’ relevant person’s representatives (RPRs) and independent mental capacity advocates (IMCAs) of the steps that you and colleagues are taking and ask for their urgent assistance.
Where there is any dispute (in other words, if there is some solution that could work but the local authority thinks it is not in the person’s best interests), it is incumbent on the local authority to make an application under section 21A of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 to the Court of Protection as a matter of urgency.
When an application is made, involve the RPR and send them a copy of all of the documents and make sure they get in touch with a solicitor. In these times, it would be useful if the local advocacy service contracted by the local authority is able to perform the function of a litigation friend in the Court of Protection. This will be a much quicker process than the court inviting the Official Solicitor to act as litigation friend. If this is not part of the contractual arrangement, work with colleagues in other departments of the local authority to amend the contract and provide additional funding.

@WinnieHarlow ‘one carer in a home setting is safer coronavirus-wise than multiple carers in congregated care.’

Multiple other posters have tried to explain why a team of people are needed to care for residents in care homes. One carer will find themselves to be exhausted and struggling to meet the needs of the individual very quickly.

I’m glad things are working out for you and your family but this certainly won’t be possible for everyone.

@Muchtoomuchtodo - but the care home in Wales, clearly an example of a life/death situation. If some of those 15 residents could have been cared for temporarily and adequately at home - even if they had been a burden - they would be alive now.

Surely the struggle/exhaustion would be a better choice?

Of course in some cases it’s not possible - but in some cases it IS possible, as the article states.

I would suggest that in the cases where it is possible that has happened
I'm not sure why you think that emptying care homes out (peoples homes) leaving care staff without jobs, moving residents from their homes ans putting burden of care on families that can't cope would be preferable from the government actually understanding and supporting care homes and their staff.
You only have to look at the examples of the care home testing process (which is hours of additional work for staff and could be organised more effectively), lack of ppe, lack of guidance and the pay freeze to show how little care staff are thought of by them.

@tattooedmummy1 explains it better than me from her experience and I thank her very much for all the work her, her colleagues and another posters mum does

Also if I had my father living with me and my family who go to school/work/shopping etc surely the risk is higher of bringing covid to him than care staff who are tested weekly regardless of symptoms and wear PPE

@Needcoffeecoffeecoffee I’m not talking about emptying care homes out, it’s about what to do for the best until the Covid situation passes, and the best way to address the rights of the people in the homes.

Also - I don’t want to refer this to my own situation, but I have a school aged child - and I was given permission to home school while DM was at her most vulnerable. Shopping was delivery - and I lived apart from my DP while he was potentially exposed at work.

And I’m not in ANY WAY suggesting that the care given by staff is inadequate or don’t deserve a huge amount of gratitude for what they do. I’m saying that care homes have faced enormous challenges and I support the guidelines given in the article.

Personally I think what's going on it care homes is horrific and disgusting! I am a self employed carer now but have spent many many years working in various care and nursing homes.

What it comes down to is bad management, poor practise and poor planning. From top to bottom this has been run badly.

Not allowing residents out or family/friends in is simply inhumane and needs to stop. I cannot believe that in 7 months they still have not come up with ways of safely allowing socially distanced visits. Every week I get at least two phone calls from distressed relatives who want to remove their relative from the care home and bring them home.

Residents should never have been discharged from hospital without being tested. Weekly tests for all staff and residents should have happened straight off. Infection control protocols should have been much more thorough and implemented better. Care and nursing homes have always been notoriously bad at infection control. PPE supplies should have been in place! Positive clients should have been nurses in nightingale type facilities to keep the risk of contamination far far lower.

There should have been a plan for this and there wasn't. Staff are continuously briefed on fire planning ect but not on proper infection control and this need to change

Most families would need a fair bit of training in order to be able to safely provide the care needs of their relative.

Who would do that, and when? And who would pay for it?
As pp has said most family homes have multiple people going in and out including kids going to school. How is that a safe environment for their relative?
Op, I know you’re doing it, but if it really was an easy to fix problem, I think many families would have done this by now.

@compulsiveliar2019
Not allowing residents out or family/friends in is simply inhumane and needs to stop. I cannot believe that in 7 months they still have not come up with ways of safely allowing socially distanced visits. Every week I get at least two phone calls from distressed relatives who want to remove their relative from the care home and bring them home.

Exactly.

OP your posts just show complete ignorance of some situations. My Mother is in a care home, after having three miserable years trying to be at home. Even with our support she was depressed and her world was small.

She is now in a fantastic home with professionals who are able to deal expertly with her physical needs. My importantly they are stimulating her with activities throughout the day and she is mentally so much better for the company and support she has. She has a variety of people around her and feels confident and in control again. Her dementia is still there and she can not longer walk after breaking her hip but she feels better for the care she is receiving.

Lockdown is hard but the home has done everything they can from outdoor visits to getting a safe visitor pod so we can see our relatives. Not as often as we would like but very regularly.

All the staff have covid checks weekly and Mum has a covid check each month.

I could bring her to my house and she would be stuck in one room. I would either give up work which if it were the right thing to do I would but the her only contact would be me. At the moment she sees many people daily is able to go out into the garden and this is way better for her than being stuck in one room.

The governement need to up their game and get better testing for all care homes. If the staff and residents are tested there will be no more tragedies like the home mentioned in the news article.

The tests that give faster results could also be used for visitors. Care homes are not the problem, many of them are the most amazing places on the planet and I will always be grateful for the love and care that is given out so freely to my Mother.