We need more testing and need it now: Desperate Scottish care homes in plea for screening

Owners appeal for protection We speak to grieving families and traumatised staff as Covid-19 continues to inflict terrible toll in the country’s care homes

Care home directors have called for far more coronavirus tests for residents and staff and say Scottish ministers are not doing enough to protect the most vulnerable.

Donald Macaskill, of Scottish Care, said ministers’ promise of 3,500 tests per day “doesn’t add up” as official figures revealed more than a third of Scots homes are experiencing an outbreak of Covid-19.

Mr Macaskill warned: “They are proposing this by the end of the month and we are grateful, but it’s not nearly enough.

“These tests will be shared between the NHS and the care sector. Scotland’s care sector alone has 100,000 carers working in homes and communities, and each and every one of them is at risk and needing a test.

“We also have 35,000 residents in care homes, 10,000 adults in homes and an additional 80,000 people needing care at home in the community. Those figures will prove 3,500 tests a day are just not enough.”

Yesterday, the Scottish Government said 526 (49%) of care homes have had at least one case, while 384 (35%) are dealing with a current outbreak of Covid19. There have been 2,621 cases in homes so far.

One care charity which has lost 11 residents to the virus said only two out of 50 staff and a single resident had been tested by last week.

Jack Ryan, chief executive of Newark Care, which operates two homes, said: “We are only now, five weeks in, at the position where we can say we are able to get a small number of residents or staff tested. This is the scandal in all of this.”

Newark’s 38-room Westacres home in Newton Mearns, East Renfrewshire, tragically lost 11 residents to the virus as staff repeatedly tried to get people tested. Its other home, Burnfield, in Giffnock, Glasgow, has so far been unaffected.

Robert Kilgour, who runs Renaissance Care, said that despite ongoing demands for more testing and 34 deaths at his 15 care homes, just 65 of 700 residents and only 92 of a 1,100-strong workforce had been tested.

Mr Kilgour said: “That is just not good enough. If we are ever going to get the better of Covid-19, we must have testing at least once a week in every care home, for every resident and every member of staff.”

Scottish Conservative leader Jackson Carlaw said: “The current level of testing is unacceptable and has to be radically increased if we’re to help these brave people out.”

Shadow Scottish Health Secretary Miles Briggs said the government’s aim of carrying out 3,500 tests a day by the end of the month was “simply not good enough”.

The Green Party said its analysis of Scottish Government figures indicated an average of 1,186 tests had been carried out daily since April 5.

The Scottish Government said: “All symptomatic residents and staff in a care home will be offered testing for Covid-19 where appropriate.

“This week, the health secretary wrote to all care homes outlining that staff and residents are prioritised for testing. Health boards have been asked to liaise with health protection teams to ensure care homes are supported in the transition to this new increased testing regime.”

Meanwhile, it emerged yesterday that tests for key workers through the government’s new booking website had run out in England and Wales for a second day in a row.