Jabs protect elderly, insist NHS bosses as care home cases double in a week

Outbreaks have not led to surge in hospitalisations, say doctors after charities warn of ‘deep concerns’

COVID outbreaks in care homes have almost doubled in a week, with nearly 1,000 in total in the run-up to Christmas, official data shows.

Charities said the figures were “deeply worrying”, with warnings that hospitals are struggling to discharge patients because of the number of care homes closed to new admissions.

But NHS leaders said the outbreaks did not appear to be leading to any major rise in hospital admissions, suggesting that even among the most vulnerable, vaccinations were providing good protection against severe disease.

The weekly statistics from the UK Health Security Agency, released just before Christmas, show 386 outbreaks in care homes, up from 218 the previous week, and 190 two weeks before.

The data, which cover the period up to Dec 16, show a total of 957 Covid “acute respiratory infection incidents” in the previous four weeks.

The term is used for a suspected outbreak, with at one least confirmed Covid case, and others suspected.

Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents hospitals, said better access to tests was one of the most urgent priorities for the sectors.

Mr Hopson said the lack of space in care homes was exacerbating the crisis.

“There’s one London borough where almost all care homes are now closed to new admissions, because of a combination of outbreaks and staff shortages,” Mr Hopson said.

“Trusts who were able to make some progress discharging patients before Christmas are saying it’s now getting harder and harder because of this.”

However, the NHS chief said that so far, the outbreaks did not appear to be resulting in significant numbers of hospital admissions – an encouraging sign, given that those affected were the most vulnerable.

“Trust chief executives are saying to us it is interesting that we’re getting no admissions from those outbreaks,” Mr Hopson said.

“If we really were likely to be on the end of a very large surge, with seriously ill old people, you would have thought that outbreaks in care homes would be a likely place where you will start to see a significant increase in admissions, but so far the evidence is that we aren’t seeing this,” he added.

Mr Hopson said it was too early to be sure the trend would not occur, but said the lack of hospital admissions from care homes – where the vast majority of residents are vaccinated – was “another piece of evidence that suggests that actually, we may not see that surge”.

Caroline Abrahams, of Age UK, said: “We knew that sooner or later omicron would get into care homes because it’s so highly infectious, but for the numbers to rise like this is a real concern.

“The next two or three weeks will be crucial as we see whether this trend continues, but more important still is how many of these cases translate into serious illnesses, hospitalisations and Covid related deaths.

“We hope and pray that older people who do contract the omicron variant are protected by their boosters and that their immunity holds up well.”

“This is a deeply worrying time for older people in care homes and their families and friends too, but we should take some comfort from the fact that our doctors and scientists know much more about Covid-19 now and have more treatments at their disposal.”

Dr William Welfare, the national incident director at the UK Health Security Agency, said: “As the trend of new infections continues to rise we expect to see an increase in detections of Covid-19 in care home staff and residents. It is crucial that we all play our part to slow the spread of infection. We continue to actively look for infections in care home staff and residents through regular testing and where found we manage cases and outbreaks to reduce any further transmission.”