Care homes: the neglected front line

“If you were to design a vulnerable target for a virulent new illness like Covid-19, it would be hard to come up with a better one than a care home,” said Juliet Samuel in The Daily Telegraph. It’s the “perfect breeding ground” for the virus: “two dozen elderly people, many with health conditions, all sharing kitchens, sitting rooms, books, TVs, playing cards and carers”. But it was only last week, when the Government began finally to include care-home deaths in the official death toll, that we found out exactly how “harrowing” the virus’ impact has been, said The Times. According to the most recent ONS data, the weekly number of virus-related deaths in care homes in England and Wales rose to 2,794 in the week to 24 April, up 36% on the previous week’s total of 2,050. The darkest single day for the care sector in England and Wales came on 17 April, when 415 fatalities were reported – though thankfully deaths in both hospitals and care homes seem to have dropped off since.

Mistakes were made right from the beginning, said Jill Kirby in The Daily Telegraph. During the early days of the virus, “we now know that the Government, in its desperate quest to free up hospital beds, gave instructions for hundreds of elderly ‘bed-blockers’ to be sent back into their care homes”. In pre-Covid days, such a policy might have seemed “sensible” – but with a virus this infectious, it soon began to look “reckless”, particularly since it was impossible to protect residents and care-home staff without adequate PPE or access to testing. Yet despite the growing threat, initial government advice that infection in care homes was “very unlikely” remained in place until 13 March, by which time 798 cases of the disease had been confirmed in Britain, and ten people had died. Now, more than 4,500 care homes in England are affected by the virus, around a third of all homes – while data from the National Records of Scotland shows that of the 656 Covid-related deaths recorded in the country between 20 and 26 April, 338 were in care homes: more than half of the total.

“The current crisis has highlighted the long-term neglect of the sector,” said The Spectator. Care homes have become the “Cinderella of healthcare, forever struggling for resources” as funds are lavished on the NHS. Part of the reason is that people are simply living longer – but greater longevity is “no triumph” if it means the elderly are neglected. The current order to “stay home, protect the NHS” suggests UK hospitals are the “only front line” in the battle against the virus. But care homes are the other: neglected both before this crisis and during it. “When all this is over, it will be time to correct that anomaly.”