Discharging hospital patients to care homes at the start of the pandemic

Paddyann the facts are all there. You may not like them but they exist. A simple Google will show you. Nicola has already apologised (as usual). There will be an investigation which will kick the can down road (as usual)

Im sorry there are two threads but didn’t want to delete now there are so many replies. Pity we can’t amalgamate them.

It’s easy to be wise after the event.

The situation in Scotland was highlighted at the time.

Germanshepherdsmum

It amazes me that care homes seem to accept no responsibility.

They didn't have a choice. A great deal of pressure was brought to bear and the promised PPE did not turn up.

Just how blind are the followers of this FRNL government prepared to be to support their Gods?

Germanshepherdsmum

It amazes me that care homes seem to accept no responsibility.

As I understand it, care homes, especially if they were looking after local authority funded patients, had no choice in the matter. I will see what I can find to back this up

People running some care homes seem to have shown little or no understanding of the situation. Temporary staff were hired with no care as to where they had been working previously and they transferred covid from one home to another. Some care home owners were shown to have little or no idea of how to deal with the pandemic, many were just investors who were just in it for the money. In a few homes staff recognised the problem and lived in the homes rather than going home. The blame cannot be laid solely at the door of the government. The last pandemic the UK had to deal with was in 1918 and nobody could have predicted the onslaught of covid. So easy to be wise after the event, like Captain Hindsight. What a good opportunity to bash the government. I have yet to hear how any other party would have dealt with it,

People were discharged from hospital without being tested and put into care homes.
How would anyone expect that to end?

@Germanshepardsmum Wed 27-Apr-22 18:36:34

What a horrible snipe at the Care Home staff, GSM. It really is everyone out of step but your lot, isn't it.

My mother was in a Care Home as we went into the pandemic. They knew exactly what needed doing. She died before we went into lockdown from old age not covid thankfully. However, I had to be glad that she didn't have to go through all the rubbish the homes had to take from this government and it felt like I was wishing her away. Heaven knows how those who saw preventable deaths must feel.

The blame is solely at the door of the government. They signed up for the responsiblility and then couldn't handle it. From being unprepared to gross incompetence, they let the frail elderly down.

Strangely, you can't find acceptable evidence to post on here. All countries knew about the possibility of a pandemic. And all you can do to justify the governments empty arguments is to call people names. I bet that used to go down well in court.

No one was "bashing" the government. They were coming to a legal conclusion. Just as the Public Accounts Committee did when they said that the government “exposed limitations in how the government manages risks” and also a “failure to learn”, from both simulation exercises and actual incidents.

It's time for those who appear to worship the ground Johnson walks on to admit it was a mistake and open their eyes to just how disastrous this government has been and looks like continuing to be.

There were threads on here at the time.
Posters were very shocked at what was happening.

X post, I was responding to MissAdventure

My mother was in a Care Home as we went into the pandemic. They knew exactly what needed doing. She died before we went into lockdown from old age not covid thankfully. However, I had to be glad that she didn't have to go through all the rubbish the homes had to take from this government and it felt like I was wishing her away. Heaven knows how those who saw preventable deaths must feel

Yes, it happened in the care home where my SisIL is and they had to be locked down in their rooms because other people were sent back there with Covid.

19 March 2020, NHS guidance said that "unless required to be in hospital, patients must not remain in an NHS bed".

This policy was implemented to free up beds in advance of an expected surge in coronavirus patients.

On 2 April, the rules on discharging to care homes were clarified, saying "negative [coronavirus] tests are not required prior to transfers/admissions into the care home".

Even elderly patients who tested positive could be admitted to care homes, according to the document, if measures - such as wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) and isolation - were used.

From 15 April, the government said that all patients discharged from hospitals would be tested for coronavirus.

By this time, an estimated 25,000 patients had been discharged to care homes.

Matt Hancock claims that Public Health England bears the responsibility for this.

news.sky.com/story/matt-hancock-blames-public-health-england-for-care-home-covid-failings-in-2020-but-thats-not-what-he-told-me-12600140

"The Secretary of State for Health will remain ultimately responsible to Parliament for the delivery of the functions for which Public Health England is responsible".

DaisyAnne

@Germanshepardsmum Wed 27-Apr-22 18:36:34

What a horrible snipe at the Care Home staff, GSM. It really is everyone out of step but your lot, isn't it.

My mother was in a Care Home as we went into the pandemic. They knew exactly what needed doing. She died before we went into lockdown from old age not covid thankfully. However, I had to be glad that she didn't have to go through all the rubbish the homes had to take from this government and it felt like I was wishing her away. Heaven knows how those who saw preventable deaths must feel.

The blame is solely at the door of the government. They signed up for the responsiblility and then couldn't handle it. From being unprepared to gross incompetence, they let the frail elderly down.

Strangely, you can't find acceptable evidence to post on here. All countries knew about the possibility of a pandemic. And all you can do to justify the governments empty arguments is to call people names. I bet that used to go down well in court.

No one was "bashing" the government. They were coming to a legal conclusion. Just as the Public Accounts Committee did when they said that the government “exposed limitations in how the government manages risks” and also a “failure to learn”, from both simulation exercises and actual incidents.

It's time for those who appear to worship the ground Johnson walks on to admit it was a mistake and open their eyes to just how disastrous this government has been and looks like continuing to be.

It’s a snipe, if you must call it that, at the owners and managers of care homes who continued to employ agency staff who could bring covid into the homes. In a few homes the staff decided to live in, a big sacrifice but it worked. Many care home owners are simply investors and the standard of management varies. It’s very easy to say what should have happened with the benefit of hindsight but when did the UK last have to deal with a pandemic, a disease which was a complete unknown?
Btw I have said many times that I may be a Conservative voter but I am not and never have been a supporter of Johnson.

@ Germanshepherdsmum Thu 28-Apr-22 08:56:03

Many care home owners are simply investors and the standard of management varies.

Isn't that what is being said of buy-to-let owners. The "market" in Care Homes was changed during and after Thatcher in just the way the market in housing was. Care Homes were to become a commodity to be bought and sold to make money. The Conservative party did not care about those living there or those working there. They are the "market gang" and to them, the only thing that makes money is the constant trading of goods. In this case the "good" is the home.

Attacking those running the homes, which went unsupported by the government for most of the pandemic, is still, in my view, a low blow.

Of course owners of care homes and private landlords are both investors but the requirements for care of a care home resident and a private tenant are radically different. Many care home owners and managers proved woefully inadequate in caring for their residents. They shouldn’t have found it necessary to rely on the government for everything. A modicum of common sense might have been helpful in some cases.

Everyone was obliged to do as the government instructed (except the government, of course!)

Not making apologies for anybody but hindsight is a wonderful thing.
We did not know Covid could be asymptomatic and it made sense to “clear the decks” for the anticipated waves of Covid patients.
I remember my friend, whose husband had Alzheimer’s and was admitted to hospital for tests after a stomach problem, being delighted and relieved that he was “out of that place” and comfortable in his care home.

In January 2020, doctors knew that asymptomatic transmission was occuring. I posted about this upthread with a link to an NYT article which explains what was going on. WHO were aware as were SAGE. The Diamond Princess cruise ship which was barely out of the news in February 2020 contained 100s of passengers who were infected and infectious but asymptomatic.

While Jeremy Hunt is being flagged as a potential successor to Johnson it's worth remembering he was Health Secretary in 2016 when Exercise Cygnet too place, lessons from which were ignored:

www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n335/rr-1

The Cygnus report was frank about the state of the UK’s readiness. “The UK’s preparedness and response, in terms of its plans, policies and capability, is currently not sufficient to cope with the extreme demands of a severe pandemic that will have a nationwide impact across all sectors,”

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/07/what-was-exercise-cygnus-and-what-did-it-find

It’s not to do with “hindsight”. Scientists did indeed know that covid could be transmitted asymptomatically, and the government must surely have been aware of this before people were moved into care homes.
Any trawl of the internet will show this, and I think this was mentioned by judges in the recent court case.
Care homes could not have been expected to barrier nurse, with the appropriate PPE, the influx of residents.

MawtheMerrier

Not making apologies for anybody but hindsight is a wonderful thing.
We did not know Covid could be asymptomatic and it made sense to “clear the decks” for the anticipated waves of Covid patients.
I remember my friend, whose husband had Alzheimer’s and was admitted to hospital for tests after a stomach problem, being delighted and relieved that he was “out of that place” and comfortable in his care home.

GNHQ really should have a rule on the Politics thread that says, like Parliament, people should have to come back and withdraw what they put forward as fact when it is shown not to be true.

As early as 28 January 2020 – three days before the first confirmed UK case of coronavirus – the SAGE committee of advisors warned: “There is limited evidence of asymptomatic transmission, but early indications imply some is occurring.”

A study published in the Lancet on 24 February 2020 described its own findings as “suggesting that infected individuals can be infectious before they become symptomatic”, so-called “pre-symptomatic transmission”.

NHS guidance for clinicians from 3 March recommended: “A person that is asymptomatic […] with a Coronavirus travel history or contact with a confirmed coronavirus case” should be “advised to stay indoors” and “avoid contact with other people”. The implication being that even those who do not currently display symptoms could have the virus and infect others.

Throughout March several other sources (including the European and US Centers for Disease Control) acknowledged evidence of pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic transmission.

On 26 March, Professor Yvonne Doyle of Public Health England was asked by MPs on the Health Select Committee whether “people could be spreading the virus to others for up to five days before they show any symptoms”. Professor Doyle replied: “Yes, that is correct.” She added: “we are still learning about that. It ranges over quite a long range, but in the majority of cases that we are analysing, about five days is the period.”

Nevertheless, on 2 April, the UK government issued guidance to care homes in England that said: “Residents may also be admitted to a care home from a home setting. Some of these patients may have COVID-19, whether symptomatic or asymptomatic.”

[Source: FactCheck]

The threads would consist largely of withdrawals. And everyone can find a ‘fact’ to suit their argument.

It must have been desperation to clear hospital beds for covid patients.

It takes only a slight layman's knowledge of the use of quarantine to know that you don't place possible sources of acute infectious fever where they may infect others. Who does not know that the incubation stage of an infectious fever is an infectious stage?

The government should have commandeered hotels as places of quarantine for old people removed from places where they may have become infected.

Yes! We DID know that covid may be asymptomatic. Any student nurse and most parents know that when germs are incubating in the body, that is an infectious stage.