Scarborough Borough care homes ready to take Covid-19 patients

Care homes across Scarborough Borough are ready to help hospitals with Covid-19 patients if needed.

That's the message from the North Yorkshire Local Resilience Forum.

It's after we told you that care homes across the county have confirmed they will help support discharged Coronavirus patients.

Richard Webb, Director of Health and Adult Services at North Yorkshire County Council, said:

"Care homes in the main are people's home and we want to protect them from any invasion of this virus. Equally, we know we have to free up our hospitals so they can work with people who are most critically ill, and we know that when people are medically fit they still may need longer term recovery from Covid-19.

"In the spring in North Yorkshire we did something locally because we were concerned about the national arrangements. So we put in place what we call 'quarantine beds' which were safer beds for people to be discharged if there were any question marks around them, and actually that's now Government policy.

"They can't just set up and say 'we will take people' they have to go through quite a rigorous inspection process from the Care Quality Commission; that would then set out improvements if they have to make any, there are requirements around staffing, physical space and infection control.

"We monitor the situation as do the CQC. We're trying to get that balance right between people being able to convalesce in a homelier environment nearer to their own home and also protecting other residents too."