Revealed.. chaos and confusion at heart of the Covid care home crisis
How Sunday Mail report sparked rethink on the transfer of high-risk patients
The Scottish Government changed the rules on discharging Covid - 19 patients from hospital to care homes two days after the Sunday Mail exposed the shocking practice.
An official report last week told how Health Secretary Jeane Freeman introduced a new policy on April 21 requiring anyone infected with the virus to return two negative coronavirus tests before being transferred.
The move followed our front page report on April 19 revealing that staff at Newcarron Court care home in Falkirk had been warned of uncontrolled admissions of individuals “highly likely” to be carrying the killer illness. Transfers also happened at a time when care homes were struggling with shortages in supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE). In its new review, Health Protection Scotland ( HPS) admits dozens of Covid-19 patients were discharged to care homes untested between March 1 and April 21, when Freeman changed the rules.
And a revealing email exchange with Government press officers on the eve of publication of our story suggests a Government in chaos, with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and her officials wrongly believing the two-test rule was already in place throughout this period.
When we asked for comment on our story on April 18, a spokesman said: “It is important to note that hospital patients with Covid-19 are not discharged until they complete two negative tests.”
It was only after we pointed out that HPS guidelines gave no such advice and
supplied a link to its website that the Scottish Government admitted it had given the wrong information.
A spokesman said: “Just to say that the guidance in that link is the most up-to-date. And it is the case that two negative tests are not always required if strict isolation can take place following discharge or the patient no longer has symptoms and has completed their isolation period prior to arrival.”
Scottish Labour’s health brief Monica Lennon said: “This exposes the utter chaos at the heart of the Scottish Government as the care home crisis was unfolding.
“Mi n i ster s and of f icia l s themselves seem to have been completely unclear as to what the rules were.
“The Scottish Government should immediately begin preliminary work on setting up the public inquiry into the Covid-19 pandemic response.”
Deaths in care homes account for about half of Covid-related deaths in Scotland with about 2000 fatalities.
Last week’s HPS report into care home deaths provoked fury from opposition politicians. It revealed how dozens of patients who had tested positive for Covid-19 were transferred from Scottish hospitals to care homes.
Only 650 of the total 3599 elderly patients discharged from hospital during the period had been tested.
Sturgeon insisted there was “no statistical evidence” hospital discharges led to care home outbreaks.
The delayed HPS report said nearly 5000 individuals were discharged from NHS hospitals to care homes until the end of May.
About a third of care homes have had Covid outbreaks. Of 78 patients discharged before April 21 after having had a positive test result, only 10 had been retested and found to be negative prior to discharge. The new policy on April 21 required patients to have two negative Covid tests before leaving hospital, and for all new care home admissions to be isolated for 14 days.
Our report two days before exposed leaked documents showing staff at Newcarron Court had activated emergency contingency plans to deal with positive patients who were “highly likely” to be arriving from local hospitals.
At the time, the home’s owner Advinia Health Care confirmed it was helping local hospitals with “capacity issues”.
Rhea Wol fson, Scot l and Organiser for the GMB union, which represents hundreds of care home workers, said: “This is not about blame. This is about accountability over the decisions taken for Scotland’s care sector where nearly half of all Covid-related deaths have occurred. The truth was that there was no PPE guidance let alone proper PPE provision for care staff and there was no testing regime for the social care sector from the outset of this crisis.
“Ministers can say there is no stat i s t ica l ev idence about transmission from NHS transfers or talk about the benefit of hindsight, but this is just not credible – they know what happened.”
The Scottish Government said: “Our guidance on testing has changed as we learned more about the pandemic, and while the two negative test requirement was announced as a pol icy for al l hospital discharges from April 21.
“Covid tests were available for a significant time before then, and clinical decisions around testing were for hospitals to make on a case-by-case basis.
“However, neither Scottish Ministers nor Government officials had information on the results of Covid-19 tests prior to discharge, or where individual patients were discharged to.”