Ruislip & Eastcote & Northwood Gazette
Tiny numbers of patients tested before release to care homes
FEWER than 10 percent of patients who were discharged to care homes from Hillingdon hospitals were tested for coronavirus during the peak of the pandemic, it has been revealed.
A Freedom of Information request showed that just seven out of 81 people were checked for the deadly virus before being sent to care homes from Hillingdon and Mount Vernon hospitals from March 1 to April 15.
The two hubs are run by the Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which confirmed that two patients did test positive for Covid19. Five tested negative.
The data from the Prime Minister’s own constituency comes as the government was accused of “throwing care homes to the wolves” during the pandemic as orders to test every patient before being sent to a home from hospital were not in place until April 16.
The peak of the pandemic in the UK has been identified as the end of March and early April.
The influential Public Accounts Committee made up of cross-party MPs published a report on Wednesday, July 29, calling the government’s policy an “appalling” error in allowing patients to be discharged without testing before that date.
A spokesperson for Hillingdon Hospital said its discharge team was implementing processes in line with government guidelines from March 19.
A letter from health bosses on that date read: “One of the most important tasks will be to ensure we have the capacity to support people who have acute healthcare needs in our hospitals.
“To do this we need to organise the safe and rapid discharge of those people who no longer need to be in a hospital bed. The new default will be discharged home today.”
A Hillingdon hospital spokesperson added the site worked within coronavirus guidance to give care homes information about patients at discharge.
This included the date and results of any Covid-19 test, the date of onset symptoms and a care plan for discharge from isolation.
The Local Democracy Reporting Service previously reported in May that a West Drayton care home, The Burroughs, had confirmed 13 residents had died with coronavirus symptoms.
Care home provider Care UK, which runs the Mill Road residence, revealed eight residents had died at the home, while a further five people died after being transferred to hospital.
It is believed from March 1 to April 15, The Burroughs took three new residents from hospitals, and that despite asking for tests to be done it was understood that tests were not readily available from the hospitals.
Vivien Ziwocha, Care UK’s regional director, said: “It is impossible to say how things might have been different had regular and widespread testing been available in the early stages of the pandemic.
“Our main focus now is on how we move forward.
“All new residents are now discharged from hospital with a negative test.”
West Drayton councillor Janet Duncan said there was “large concern” among Hillingdon hospital staff about testing of patients during the early period of the pandemic but that the priority was to make space quickly for new patients.
She added: “It seemed to me, yes we have got to act quickly but if we are sending out a lot of people and [they] have not been tested then we are actually sending it [the virus] out to spread it in the community...
“We all sort of went into limbo when everyone first went into lockdown, we were all cut off and nobody knew what was happening. We couldn’t go to care homes, it was too unsafe.”
And fellow ward councillor Jan Sweeting went on: “It is of great concern that so many deaths from Covid have occurred in care homes locally.
“Each death is a devastation as it is a double bereavement affecting both the families of each of those who have died and also those working so hard within the care homes.
“Many questions will need to be asked both locally and nationally about deaths in care homes at the appropriate time as we have lost so many of our most vulnerable to this terrible virus.”
A government spokesperson said £1.3 billion was made available to support the hospital discharge process.
This included to cover extra costs such as additional support and alternative accommodation for quarantining residents.
They added: “We have provided 172 million items of PPE to the social care sector since the start of the pandemic and are testing all residents and staff, including repeat testing for staff and residents in care homes for over 65 or those with dementia.”