Care Home covid deaths following release from hospital

[LizzieMacQueen]

Could someone please explain the findings. Public Health Scotland have said no fault of the SG but can that be right?

I've listened to several reports now but I still don't follow.

(I guess I should read the report - is there one?)

I didn't really understand it either (no surprise there), but watching the clip of NS answering the question, I think she would have come out better has she said something like, "yes, that was daft, wasn't it. Thankfully it doesn't seem to have lead to outbreaks." Instead she said that everything was honky-dory like it had been planned all along.

This is being discussed right now in FMQs and Nicola Sturgeon is looking quite uncomfortable tbh. She was apparently quite selective in her quote from the report, and there is (apparently, I haven't read it) other parts saying that the variation in risk varies quite substantially according to the setting. Ruth Davidson also quoting figures showing that care homes with hospital discharges had 2-3 times the level of infections as those without, and saying that they don't have a stratified figure for care homes with known positive discharges. NS isn't denying any of this and keeps deflecting about what is being done elsewhere in the UK and saying that she doesn't think this report is the last word on the matter, which makes me think she knows its a bit dodgy but is trying to limit the damage. Still refusing to commit to a full enquiry until the 'time is right' (after the election per chance?).

I think the issue is this. The government expected an absolute deluge of patients into the hospital and wanted to keep beds free for younger people who would have far more chance of survival and have much more life in front of them. They were expecting an absolute disaster to occur in the hospitals so took the action which they thought best. Would anyone do any different in the same situation? If the same thing we're to occur again, what could be done differently?At some point when hospitals are being overwhelmed, or it looks likely that they will be, I assume most people would consider this the only option? There is no point in getting too outraged about this. It's awful and hideous that we would ever face this but in reality, when push comes to shove, what would be the alternative? We need to be careful what we wish for as the alternative would not be palatable either (beds full of those very likely to succumb either from Covid or something else and others not able to get in?)It's obvious that Nicola Sturgeon(who I don't even like) wasn't deliberately trying to harm older people. The policy was to keep beds for people who were far more likely to survive and who had a far longer life expectancy ahead (average life expectancy on entering a care home is about 2 years I have read)

@Murcielago, absolutely, and I would be quite happy if she said that, but she isn't, as far as I can tell.

But they didn't ever need to empty them out that fast. They should have been testing and releasing as results came out. If it got to the point where they needed to get patients released quickly then there were other strategies that could have been taken. One of which could have been using a brand new empty hospital that was another fuck up.

I'm sure that there were more than just NS involved in this but it's the dishonesty and sleekit underhandness that means there are more questions to answer and let's not forget the amount who weren't tested at all.

Jeanne Freeman would also have been involved though she surely cannot survive another scandal ( spoiler alert; she will ).

@LizzieMacQueen

Jeanne Freeman would also have been involved though she surely cannot survive another scandal ( spoiler alert; she will ).

Think she is not standing at the next election which is only about 6 months away so sure she will manage to hang on - does she still attend the daily party political broadcasts?

@Murcielago I also doubt that Nicola Sturgeon set out to deliberately kill elderly people, and I agree that they were probably worried about overwhelming hospital capacity given what we had seen in Europe at the time. But was that not the reason we built a whole suite of field hospitals? What was also abundantly clear at the time was that elderly people were far more likely to be badly harmed from this virus than any other demographic, and that fact alone should have given pause for thought before seeding care homes with elderly patients to free up hospital space. That is not just with the benefit of hindsight, all of the early data from China was telling us this. As Wax says, there was no need to rush the discharges, more care could and should have been taken. It does seem as though they panicked, and elderly have paid for that with their lives.

What annoys me most is the attempts to minimise or deflect from these mistakes. Yesterday when NS selectively quoted the line from the report I thought it was a very deliberate choice of words "No statistical evidence of.." when it seems the wider issue is far from settled. The decision to hold back on a full enquiry until after the pandemic seems purely political as it is likely to expose a lot of poor decision making - she has repeatedly said herself that they need to understand what went wrong, so surely it's best to understand the problems while there's a chance to learn from them and prevent further unnecessary death (ie. now) rather than wait until there's been another wave of the virus.

The problem with the new fast built hospital is staff. DP works in a hosp and staff shortages are a huge problem. The new hospitals were always going to be problematic in that sense.The care homes had staff and they weren't expecting to be able to treat most of the care home patients in hospital to cure them anyway as they were already so old and ill. The only reason they are hiding it as that they don't want to admit the truth for politically correct reasons as people will suggest it's basically evil to prioritise healthcare based on age or frailty. They don't want to be seen to be rationing healthcare.

What I find most unlikely is the assertion that the discharge of Positive patients to care homes did not contribute to the deaths from Covid in said care homes.

They are saying that that is the case then why on earth are all the current restrictions still in place, including no visits in care homes? It simply makes no sense.

Hmm so either it was a waste of money building hospitals they couldn't staff, or the alternative reality that as they had stopped all routine or planned surgery/out patients appointments etc. there were lots of staff sitting twiddling their thumbs - I appreciate absences were up and that some staff were worked into the ground, but DHs experience was that there were plenty of staff with nothing to do. I appreciate they may not have particular specialisms, but all nurses do a base level of "normal" nursing, including mental health nurses etc.

Either scenario doesn't fit their narrative though so that'll be something else to brush under the carpet.

@WaxOnFeckOff

Hmm so either it was a waste of money building hospitals they couldn't staff, or the alternative reality that as they had stopped all routine or planned surgery/out patients appointments etc. there were lots of staff sitting twiddling their thumbs - I appreciate absences were up and that some staff were worked into the ground, but DHs experience was that there were plenty of staff with nothing to do. I appreciate they may not have particular specialisms, but all nurses do a base level of "normal" nursing, including mental health nurses etc.

Either scenario doesn't fit their narrative though so that'll be something else to brush under the carpet.

The most Teflon leader and government ever.

Staff twiddling their thumbs?

Not a nurse (AHP) but we were told to cancel 3 months of work - at a national level - so we had thousands of patients to cancel - with almost no admin support - so we spent weeks phoning our patients.

And still "seeing" urgent patients by phone/video consultations, reorganising our entire service (at days notice).

With higher absence rates (illness, redeployment).

So yes, we just "sat around twiddling our thumbs"

@LizzieMacQueen

Jeanne Freeman would also have been involved though she surely cannot survive another scandal ( spoiler alert; she will ).

Between her and Swinney they have more lives than a whole pile of cats put together.

The care home thing WAS a massive fuck-up and there's no excuse for it. My medical training amounts to watching a few episodes of Holby and even I can see that putting some old/vulnerable people with a dangerous virus into a home with lots of other old/vulnerable people is beyond stupid.