maddyone
What a difficult situation it was. Not enough tests or PPE and probably some lack of understanding about Covid and how it spreads. Of course Matt Hancock must bear responsibility as he was in charge, but the situation was difficult. I don’t think the patients could have gone into hotels to quarantine because they were old and required nursing care although not medical care. The care homes probably had insufficient PPE and the staff perhaps a lack of understanding or ability to quarantine the patients.
Not everyone in care homes needs, or gets, nursing care. I work in a care home and we have no nurses and our residents would have managed in quarantine the same as they did in the home when a hospital visit resulted in an outbreak. The only difference would be in a hotel they would have ensuites which not all our residents do so our quarantining of residents was clearly not 100% and couldn't possibly be which is why it spread. Fortunately no deaths.
Our understanding was fine thank you, we just weren't prepared to deny residents access to a bathroom for 2 weeks.