Kentish Express Ashford & District
More than 250 dead in care homes hit by Covid
More than 150 of the county’s 547 care homes have reported coronavirus cases in the last three months.
As of last week, Office for National Statistics figures showed 255 elderly residents had died from the illness.
Kent County Council’s adult social care cabinet member, Cllr Clair Bell (Con), described the outbreaks as “regrettable” but said: “Our residential homes are mainly Covid free.”
She said Kent has the largest number of homes in the South East, but also the lowest outbreaks across the region.
However, 17 deaths were recorded at Grosvenor Court in Cliftonville two weeks ago.
Pressures continue to be faced around hospital discharges between NHS providers and care homes, members of the KCC’s adult social care committee were told.
Corporate director for adult social care and health, Richard Smith, said: “When we started to embark on this journey we had particular areas of challenges around hospital discharge.
“These were not systematic but more localised issues where care homes were not provided with data or the correct status of someone’s test results whether positive or negative.
“KCC challenged this with our support and work with Public Health and clinical commissioning groups.
“We got ourselves into a better place by brokering a more positive relationship with the NHS and our care homes.”
But he added: “It’s not all rosy. I still think we do have some level of instances where the information is not shared as appropriately as it should be.”
County Hall chiefs recently received a £18.8million grant from the Government as part of a national £600m support package for care homes. Around 75% of this has been sent to providers.
In addition, more than £7million has been invested by KCC into more than 2.4million items of personal protective equipment (PPE) purchases for key workers, including aprons, hand sanitiser and masks.
However, KCC’s main opposition leader, Cllr Rob Bird (Lib Dem) said that sharp focus should be put towards the test and trace system which is being rolled out by the Government to manage any Covid-19 outbreaks in communities. He added: “The sooner we nail that, the better.”