Failure to send test results is simply not good enough

Over six months into the coronavirus pandemic and still testing and the receiving of test results has been seen as a disaster. Now we learn that 30 per cent of staff in Portsmouth City Council-run care homes are not receiving results at all.

Council leader Cllr Gerald Vernon-Jackson has written to Prime Minister Boris Johnson pointing out that ‘it is an impossible situation for people to run care homes safely and efficiently if they do not get the results of Covid-19 tests sent back accurately and in a timely way’.

Care homes test their own staff using government-provided kits.

At the height of the first wave of the pandemic care homes were badly hit with infections leading to a significant number of deaths among residents.

By their very nature care homes house elderly and vulnerable people – the very people that need the most protection.

If staff are not getting test results at all and those who are are having to wait until it is nearly time to retest staff each week, it goes without saying that many care homes must be operating with staff numbers well below what they require to provide the care which is needed.

That in itself is unsafe because of the added pressure put on those who are able to turn up for work.

There are many things still yet to be learned from this virus, but surely one of the first is the impact it has had on our elderly and vulnerable residents.

No-one wants to see a return to that and there have indeed been pledges from various quarters that the elderly must be protected at all costs.

The government has done many good things to help stop the spread of Covid but it cannot be said by any stretch of the imagination that testing is one of them.

To repeat the words of Cllr Vernon-Jackson, a 30 per cent failure rate in sending back test results is just not good enough.