EXCLUSIVE: What really happened in our care homes?
A care home manager has given us her first hand account of what she experienced during the pandemic
We've all heard of the tragic deaths that happened in our care homes during the pandemic, talks of residents being admitted from hospitals without a Covid test, and the lack of PPE that carers were succumbed too.
We've been speaking exclusively to a care home operations manager, who has created a picture of just how terrifying it was, and the real impacts of working and running care homes during the coronavirus pandemic.
Operations manager, Pearl Jackson said:
"A lady was begging to go to hospital for treatment, and she was denied treatment and died within 24 hours, with her family looking through the window, crying, the loss of a younger women, she was only in her 60's.
"People wandered around care homes with dementia, when they'd been discharged from hospital to us and one unit was completely cleared out, because of one gentleman who was transferred from hospital, and he visited all the other residents on the unit to say 'hello' and every single resident died."
It comes after Dominic Cummings told MPs on 26th May:
"We were told categorically in March that people would be tested before they went back to care homes. We only subsequently found out that that hadn't happened.
"The government rhetoric was we put a shield around care homes - it was complete nonsense.
"The opposite of putting a shield around them, we sent people with COVID back to care homes."
Like several care home owners and carers across the country, they are calling for a inquiry now, not next year.
There's also calls for a safe guarding investigation into what happened and why.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said:
“Protecting people in adult social care has been a key priority throughout the pandemic and we have provided billions of pounds to support the sector including on infection and prevention control measures, over 255 million items of PPE, priority vaccinations and additional testing.
“We are focused on ensuring everyone who relies on adult social care continues to receive the support they need and we are clear no care home should be forced to admit residents if they do not feel they can provide the appropriate care.”
BACKGROUND:
From the start of the pandemic we have been doing everything we can to ensure care home residents and staff are protected. This includes testing all residents and staff, providing over 255 million items of PPE, ring-fencing over £1.1billion to prevent infections in care homes and making a further £4.6bn available to councils to address pressures caused by the pandemic – including in adult social care.
We have always worked closely with the sector and public health experts to ensure care homes have the guidance and support they need throughout the last year.
This year, the funding committed to councils through un-ringfenced grants to tackle the impact of COVID-19 on their services, including in adult social care, is rising to £6 billion.
The steps we have taken have been designed with care users in mind, to ensure that individuals are treated with dignity and respect and that their individual needs are addressed.
We published our first guidance for the sector in February 2020 and have continued to update and develop guidance as new evidence has emerged.
We are constantly reviewing our guidance in line with policy changes, based at all times on scientific advice.
It is our priority to ensure that everyone receives the right care, in the right place, at the right time. This includes ensuring people are discharged safely from hospital to the most appropriate place, and that they receive the care and support they need.
Since March 2020 we have made £2.8 billion available via the NHS to support enhanced discharge processes.
As set out in the Adult Social Care Action Plan on 15 April, all individuals are required to be tested prior to discharge from hospital to a care home.
All individuals must be tested, and receive their result, prior to discharge from hospital to a care home.
To further support safe and timely discharge, and protect care home residents and staff from COVID-19 throughout winter, we have now developed a designation scheme working with the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
Only those who test negative or who are clinically assessed as unlikely to be infectious may be discharged directly to a care home. Otherwise the person must be discharged to a “designated setting” specifically assured by CQC for that purpose, to complete a 14-day period of isolation before onward transfer to a care home.
We have expanded testing in care homes to include twice weekly rapid turnaround staff LFD tests to identify and isolate more positive cases in addition to the current weekly PCR test. Care staff are given weekly PCR test and twice weekly LFDs. Residents are given a monthly PCR test.
ON DNACR:
It is totally unacceptable for ‘Do Not Attempt CPR’ orders to be applied in any kind of blanket fashion - this has never been policy. We have taken decisive action to prevent it from happening, working closely with the health and care sector to make this clear and asked the CQC to undertake a review