Sat 1 Aug 2020, 08:50 AM | Posted by editor
LETTER from Mark Langabeer, Newton Abbot Labour member.
An hour-long special Panorama programme called The forgotten front line gave a distressing account of the situation in care homes in the UK. Reporter, Alison Holt interviewed staff at two homes in Manchester and Eastbourne. It was reported that over 22,000 have died of Covid-19 in UK care homes and 19,000 of these were in England and were as a result of the failure to test patients and staff.
The message of the programme was that care homes were an afterthought. In the early stages of the pandemic, 25,000 patients were discharged from hospitals into care homes without testing, effectively ‘seeding’ hundreds of care homes with the virus. The other cause of transmission was the failure to test care staff during the months of March and April. Holt interviewed care staff and nurses who were reduced to tears because they couldn’t give the care that would be normally given to those approaching the end of life.
The Eachstep Blackley home, specialising in dementia patients, had someone who exhibited symptoms and tested positive in hospital, but the hospital transferred the patient back to the home because they couldn’t treat her any further. Within a week, a further four contracted the disease and died. The families of those who died were not able to be present in the last days of their lives. Particularly distressing was an account by a nurse who is trained in administering morphine to relieve the suffering of those who were unable to breathe or in serious pain.
Tears rolled down his face when he related that he was unable to give relief to one care home resident. This was the worst case he had ever had, he said, and felt that the patient should have been in a hospital with a team of professionals, giving end of life care. Another member of the care staff stopped the interview when she said that she was unable to give the level of care that would have been given to a resident who was dying. As the manager of Eachstep Blackley stated, care work isn’t just a job, it’s a vocation.
Roger Waluube, a former NHS manager and owner of Pelham House care home, said that they were unable to arrange to get tests. In the early stages of the pandemic, they were even unable to get sufficient supplies of food and thought that they should have been prioritised. They had suspected Covid cases who were returned from hospitals before the results of their tests. The consequence was that nine of the twenty residents later died after contracting Covid.
Matt Hancock, the Minister for Health, said that the Government had put into place a protective ring around care homes, but Waluube asked the question, “where was this protective ring?”. The Government is in denial over the fact that care homes were forgotten; they claim that £3-7 billion was given to local authorities to assist in the crisis, but Pelham House, for example, received £40,000 when they needed another £100,000 for the care home to remain viable.
The closure of care homes would add further trauma to residents as the care home is often treated as their own home. Mark Adams, Chief Executive of Community Integrated Care, said that this will be seen in due course as “the most mismanaged response to a national crisis” in modern times. The number of excess deaths between March, April and May has been greater than anywhere else in Europe and supports the view that care homes were an afterthought in the fight against coronavirus.
