Releasing people from hospital into care homes

theworriedwell virtually nobody (except a few self funders) in a care home is self caring, or they wouldn’t be there, and the number of residential homes (less dependent) as opposed to nursing homes has diminished over the years as more people are looked after in the community, which has resulted in increased dependency levels in care. Most people discharged from hospital into nursing homes do need full nursing care or at least substantial nursing input into their care or they wouldn’t get a bed. District nurses provide the nursing care in residential homes, as part of their normal workload.
I certainly don’t blame nurses, or care workers, or doctors for what happened. It was a government decision to have patients sent back to care homes to create space in the acute hospitals, they are accountable. Having seen Aveline’scomment I’m at least glad that in Wales patients weren’t discharged to care homes with a known COVID status.

As someone else said, hindsight is a wonderful thing. I don't think blame should be apportioned to nursing or care staff who worked under such difficulties.
I hope we can learn from this debacle and even more I hope we never have a situation like this again.
Matt Hancock and others are of course paid big bucks to take responsibility.

I've seen a couple of very interesting interviews on tv this week. Early morning stuff; I think GMB. First was a doctor on the Covid front line who said she had declared her unhappiness at her patient being released to a care home but it seemed to be out of her hands. Second was a care home manager who declared her disquiet at having patients from hospital to her care home without tests. Think she said she was 'forced'. I know nothing of regulations in these arenas but these were front line people who were seemingly on the same wavelength. Their comments certainly resonated with me.

Hardly any district nurses here any more, my friend is one and often has to work alone and the team is almost minute

maddyone

Thank you for explaining the situation as it was in your care home theworriedwell. Possibly not all care homes were in the same situation as yours. I appreciate that not all care home residents require nursing, but many do, especially when recently discharged from hospital having been ill. We cannot generalise as there are many care homes across the country and from news reports at the time, it appears that they all coped differently. Some were lucky in that their preventative measures kept their homes free of Covid whilst others, despite everything they did, found that Covid got into their home, with various results.

I’m pleased to hear that there were no deaths in your care home.

I've never worked in a care home that had nurses, there are plenty of them. Even if they quarantined those people it would have reduced the spread.

I have a relative in a care home, in her home the staff moved in for lockdown to protect their residents, they slept in caravans on the car park. Covid got in, you guessed it, it came from a resident discharged from hospital.

My home had pressure to accept a new resident from hospital who couldn't go home. We couldn't have taken them if we wanted to as we were full. Homes are registered for a certain number of beds. It was suggested we could just open another room. No we couldn't - no breaking our registration.

I heard the manager of one home saying she wasn't told a resident was being discharged. The doorbell rang and the ambulance man presented her with the resident in a wheelchair, she said she didn't have facilities to isolate him and couldn't take him. She was told he was being left there and she had no alternative.

I know of another case where the hospital waited till mid evening when they were pretty sure the manager wouldn't be around and told the staff member on duty the discharged had been agreed. Fortunately the staff member phoned their manager and she made it clear a discharge had not been agreed.

A protective ring round care homes? Oh how we laughed.

Casdon

theworriedwell virtually nobody (except a few self funders) in a care home is self caring, or they wouldn’t be there, and the number of residential homes (less dependent) as opposed to nursing homes has diminished over the years as more people are looked after in the community, which has resulted in increased dependency levels in care. Most people discharged from hospital into nursing homes do need full nursing care or at least substantial nursing input into their care or they wouldn’t get a bed. District nurses provide the nursing care in residential homes, as part of their normal workload.
I certainly don’t blame nurses, or care workers, or doctors for what happened. It was a government decision to have patients sent back to care homes to create space in the acute hospitals, they are accountable. Having seen Aveline’scomment I’m at least glad that in Wales patients weren’t discharged to care homes with a known COVID status.

I didn't suggest they were self caring, I said they didn't all need nursing care. Obviously we care for our residents but that doesn't mean they need nursing care. Staff checking they can get up, serving them meals, helping to the bathroom. You don't need 3 years study for that. One med trained staff member can sort out med rounds.

Casdon just wanted to add none of the residents in the care home where I work are self funding.

Heard on any answers this afternoon that a care manager was offered considerable financial incentive by local council to take in extra residents. She refused. All in all it was a very informative programme on this topic in general and many contributors had experience rather than theories.

Andrew Marr was good this morning. Zahawi said they couldn't test before discharging to homes as they only had 2000 tests a day. Andrew Marr said during the relevant period, I think March and April, 2,500 were discharged from hospital to care homes so they did have enough tests and by the end of the period they had many more than 2000 tests a day.

So glad to hear them called out, calmly and politely but called out.

It really is shocking that the LA cited on Any Answers was offering a financial incentive for a home to take in covid positive residents.