Health official defends discharging patients into English care homes

[Northerner]

Discharging patients into care homes in England in early April, when the number of coronavirus cases was rapidly increasing, was neither reckless nor wrong, the Department of Health and Social Care’s most senior civil servant has claimed.

Faced with aggressive questioning from MPs on the powerful public accounts committee on Monday, Sir Chris Wormald, permanent secretary at the DHSC, said the guidance for discharge was correct based on the information available at the time.

Conservative MP Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown said to Wormald: “You were discharging them from hospital into care homes when care homes were already in dire trouble, some of the most vulnerable people in society, the testing wasn’t available, PPE [personal protective equipment] wasn’t available, the training wasn’t available. Wasn’t this a pretty reckless policy by the government?”

Wormald replied: “We don’t believe that. Now, as Prof [Stephen] Powis [national medical director of NHS England] described, at this point Covid was not considered to be widespread in the community.”

Health official defends discharging patients into English care homes

Advice in early April was that Covid-19 wasn’t widespread, Chris Wormald tells MPs

www.theguardian.com

Simple fact is that we were totally unprepared, insufficient testing capacity available even for the frontline staff, and a huge fear of the political consequences of the inadequacies of the NHS after a decade of underfunding being laid bare So they cleared out the hospital wards to establish a myth that the NHS was coping The very people most at risk of dying were exposed to the hugely increased possibility of infection - yet at the same time the government were telling the most vulnerable outside of care homes to 'shield'

 

[Inka]

I was going to say it was disgusting, but I think ‘almost criminal’ better describes it. 😡

 

[Ljc]

I am with @Inka here , tbh I think it was criminal as the care/ nursing homes didn’t have sufficient if any proper PPE and probably not enough staff too. A local rather large well respected place near me has three floors one is for people with severe dementia and only has three staff on overnight.

 

[mikeydt1]

trouble with any thing like this is that GOV all ways think they can get away with it and they do even where resulting deaths are related.

 

[Northerner]

I am with @Inka here , tbh I think it was criminal as the care/ nursing homes didn’t have sufficient if any proper PPE and probably not enough staff too. A local rather large well respected place near me has three floors one is for people with severe dementia and only has three staff on overnight.

Indeed, plus many care staff can work at more than one site, so they became spreaders of the virus themselves. Hospitals are geared up to dealing with infection control, many care homes are simply not I know that at the care home my Mum was in the staff were absolutely lovely and she was happy there, but it was a converted school building that simply could not have quarantined areas off - even if they knew whether someone was infected Even now care homes cannot all get the testing in a timely manner, as was promised

 

[grovesy]

Indeed, plus many care staff can work at more than one site, so they became spreaders of the virus themselves. Hospitals are geared up to dealing with infection control, many care homes are simply not I know that at the care home my Mum was in the staff were absolutely lovely and she was happy there, but it was a converted school building that simply could not have quarantined areas off - even if they knew whether someone was infected Even now care homes cannot all get the testing in a timely manner, as was promised

I was watching the Committee meeting on Social Care this morning and they were saying that patients were being sent home without testing to have home care as well, though this has not been widely reported. I kept thinking they were ignoring this se for too.

 

[Bruce Stephens]

Wormald replied: “We don’t believe that. Now, as Prof [Stephen] Powis [national medical director of NHS England] described, at this point Covid was not considered to be widespread in the community.”

A more useful question would have been whether Covid was common enough in hospitals at the time. But quite likely SAGE didn't think that was likely either.

 

[Northerner]

A more useful question would have been whether Covid was common enough in hospitals at the time. But quite likely SAGE didn't think that was likely either.

The trouble is, even if they were following the best scientific advice they didn't react quickly enough to ameliorate the situation once it became clear infections were being transmitted - it took them until after the peak in mid April to realise/react to what was happening

 

[grovesy]

The Italians tried warning us.

 

[trophywench]

How come we were all told to stay at home in March and the clinically extremely vulnerable had letters telling them to isolate in March then, if the Gov didn't react till April? Once you've burned Rome down - it cannot be rebuilt in a day so nobody in charge by this long after the burning, has a clue how or where to start digging the new foundations.

All we were able to see was the ducks heads apparently serenely floating by and issuing statements - without the slightest idea of how fast their legs were actually going under the top surface of the water.

Jeremy Lloyd doesn't write their scripts!