Government plans to send elderly Covid-19 hospital patients back into care homes will be like ‘throwing a lit match into a haystack’, a leading human rights group has warned.
More than 20,000 care home residents died from Covid-19 during the first wave of the pandemic. Experts say the decision to discharge thousands of untested hospital patients into care homes at the peak of the spring crisis was partly to blame.
Last week it was revealed health bosses are pursuing the same catastrophic policy again, in an attempt to free up NHS beds to protect the health service from being overwhelmed this winter.
The Department of Health reassured that homes selected to house infected patients would be carefully inspected so the facilities would not turn into breeding grounds for the virus.
But leaked documents sent by local councils to care homes – seen by the human rights group Amnesty International – offer no assurances that facilities will be properly Covid-secure.
The application forms, sent to providers up and down the country this week, asks how many free beds their facilities have and how many Covid-19 patients they can take. They also ask if care homes have adequate staffing numbers to be able to designate a team to caring for Covid-19 patients to reduce the risk of infections spreading.
Amnesty said it was concerned care homes, which have taken a financial hit by the pandemic and have fewer residents than normal, may feel obliged to accept hospital patients to stay afloat, even ‘without having the means to do so safely’.
Care homes are once again being asked to take in elderly hospital patients infected with coronavirus to protect the NHS from being overwhelmed in winter (file)
Amnesty said the treatment of care homes during the spring was ‘a violation of residents’ human rights’ and to repeat the same mistake again would be ‘irresponsible and unacceptable’.
It accused ministers of playing with fire by purposefully allowing the virus back within touching distance of the exact people who should be shielded from it.
Kate Allen, Amnesty’s director, said: ‘The discharge of Covid-19 patients into care homes full of vulnerable residents is widely regarded as one of the biggest and most devastating mistakes of the Government’s handling of the pandemic.
‘Yet the same deadly policy from earlier in the pandemic is being pursued, despite the knowledge of how disastrous it was and how many lives were lost as a consequence.
‘It is like throwing a lit match into a haystack. There is no doubt that the first mass discharge of patients without testing was a violation of residents’ human rights and could have caused avoidable deaths.’
Department of Health bosses last week wrote to local council asking them to identify a group of designated facilities to house infected patients in.
Ministers are aiming to create 500 facilities by the end of November and insist the move is aimed at preventing a second crisis in care homes.
The Government has assured the public that selected homes will be inspected by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) – a Government-run agency – to ensure they meet infection control standards.
But Amnesty said it was worried that homes which accept infected patients will not have been assessed by an independent body.
This, the group says, would ‘guarantee homes have the necessary infrastructure, staff, equipment, training, and systems in place to ensure effective protection from the virus for residents and staff, and adequate care for incoming infected patients’.
The group said it had written to the CQC to get assurances about how it will ensure care homes are Covid-secure, but had received no response.
Ms Allen added: ‘As the country heads towards another peak of cases, it is incredibly worrying that care homes are being asked to take in Covid-19 patients without adequate support, effectively putting the lives of their residents and staff at risk. This is irresponsible and unacceptable.
‘If the Government is serious about protecting people through winter it must urgently require an independent mechanism to assess care homes’ capacity to accept Covid-19 patients safely.
‘We must see a full independent public inquiry with an immediate initial phase so that lessons can be learnt and informed decisions can be made before any more lives are lost.’
The DHSC letter to care providers last month said it is hoped that every local authority will have access to at least one CQC designated site by the end of October.
The cost of these designated facilities is expected to be funded through the £588million discharge funding.
The letter, from the DHSC’s director for Adult Social Care Quality, Tom Surrey, reads: ‘Emphasis should be on commissioning standalone units or settings with separate zoned accommodation and staffing.’
The designated scheme does not apply to residents who contract Covid-19 in their care home, people using emergency departments who are not admitted, or people supported to live in their own home, it adds.
Local authorities have also been asked to ensure there is repeat testing, sufficient personal protective equipment (PPE), arrangements for staff isolation or non-movement, protection from viral overload, sickness pay and clinical treatment.
Care homes — still suffering from a lack of tests and PPE to contain coronavirus and protect staff — were thrown to the wolves in the spring when thousands of hospital patients were discharged into them without being tested for the virus.
The move was designed to free up beds for an incoming surge of Covid-19 sufferers and protect the NHS from being overwhelmed. But the decision was partly to blame for more than 20,000 care home residents being killed by the virus, according to estimates from the Office for National Statistics.
Another problem during the first wave was that workers — particularly agency staff — were able to go freely between care homes and unknowingly spread the disease.
But instead of clamping down on either issue, ministers instead banned care home visits across the UK at the height of the pandemic. Elderly residents went months without seeing their loved ones in the flesh.
Chris Whitty, England’s Chief Medical Officer, admitted over the summer that ministers and experts didn’t consider care home residents were being put at risk of Covid-19 because of agency staff working across multiple homes.
Part-time carers and bank staff who were infected but showed no symptoms were able to move freely between care homes at the start of the crisis without being tested.
Staff on zero hours contracts also went to work despite feeling ill because they were not guaranteed sick pay, which helped the disease to race through the sector and kill more than 20,000 vulnerable residents.
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