Carers only told they had Covid after working half their shift

COVID tests in care homes were so slow workers were being told they had the potentially deadly virus halfway through their shifts, an inquiry has heard.

And some workers were expected to reuse protective masks – with bosses in one home demanding they bag the used PPE to keep, the Scottish Covid-19 Inquiry was told yesterday.

Lord Brailsford’s inquiry was also told the scale of death in care homes was such that staff would experience five or six in some shifts when before the pandemic they would usually only occasionally see one.

The testimony further exposes what it was like on the frontline of Scotland’s care home system during Covid. While there was no testing of staff at the onset, it did become mandatory.

But Elizabeth Martin, who worked in care homes during the health emergency, told the inquiry: ‘The results didn’t come back very quickly to begin with. It was actually at a stage where some staff were halfway through their shift and they would get their result back saying they had tested positive.’

The crisis in securing personal protective equipment has been well documented by the inquiry.

And yesterday the probe heard of workers in one care home – who were tasked with going into residents’ rooms – being told to reuse the singleuse safety masks.

The witness said: ‘I was horrified. That in itself is an infection-control issue.’

More than 4,000 care home residents died in Scotland from Covid-19 during the pandemic.

And Ms Martin, a GMB union rep, revealed what that grim statistic meant for people working on the frontline.

She said: ‘In a care home setting you are used to dealing with death, but not on that scale.

‘There were some homes that were having five, six deaths per shift, which was quite overwhelming.’

The inquiry continues.