Hancock: No blanket rule about care homes

THERE is no ‘blanket rule’ that means care home residents with suspected coronavirus will not be admitted to hospital, the health secretary has insisted, after reports that elderly residents are being denied beds.

Matt Hancock also insisted that social care workers are being treated ‘exactly the same’ as NHS staff in the national bid to provide protective equipment – amid growing concerns that the sector is being sidelined.

Yesterday shadow care minister and Salford MP Barbara Keeley warned there seemed to be ‘almost a policy decision’ to deny hospital beds to care home residents in some areas, also suggesting social care had been an ‘afterthought’ for the government during the pandemic.

However, at yesterday’s Downing Street briefing, Mr Hancock insisted this was not the case.

“It is absolutely not a blanket rule that people shouldn’t go to hospital from care homes,” he said.

“Hospital is there for people when they need it, when the doctors advise that they go. And we have 2,029 spare critical care beds in the NHS right now. That is before we bring on stream the Nightingale hospitals and that is testament to the NHS, who’ve done amazing work.”

In Brighton, Salford and elsewhere in Greater Manchester there have been reports of doctors telling care home residents and their providers directly that they will not be taken to hospital if they have coronavirus.

However, Mr Hancock insisted there was no overarching policy to that effect.

He added: “There is no blanket rule. It is a clinical judgement about when somebody goes to hospital.”

At the briefing Mr Hancock was also asked about access to personal protective equipment for social care staff.

Labour and council bosses are becoming increasingly worried that there is too little attention being paid to the sector, where workers move between homes or among care home residents who are often highly vulnerable, but often without access to masks or other kit.

Mr Hancock said: “It’s incredibly important to me that we get the protective equipment that we need to people working in social care, as well as in the NHS.

“We will deliver that PPE into social care.”

“I know that it’s a challenge, not least because there’s around 26,000 social care settings, a combination of care homes and organisations that provide care in people’s homes.”