Council promise over care home coronavirus tests
COUNCIL leaders have promised Covid-19 tests “almost immediately” so North Somerset care homes know they are not admitting hospital patients who could spread the virus.
A letter signed by the owners of 17 care homes put North Somerset Council and the region’s clinical commissioning group “on notice”, saying they would no longer accept untested patients.
The warning came after a man who was due to be discharged from hospital into a Weston-superMare care home tested positive and subsequently died.
Speaking during a Facebook Live video, deputy council leader Mike Bell, the executive member for adult social care, said: “We’re working with the care home sector to try to support them.
“There’s been a call for any discharged patients to be tested before discharge.
“That’s something that’s likely to be put in place almost immediately to give more confidence to care homes.
“We’re looking to move forward with some additional financial support for the care home sector ...
“We’re enormously grateful for what they have done.”
The commitment came after care home owner Peter Allen said his staff had been placed in a horrendous position of wanting to care for one of their former residents – who tested positive and subsequently died – but knowing other vulnerable lives would have been put at risk.
On the Facebook video, Matt Lenny, the council’s director of public health, said it as not yet clear how many deaths there have been in care homes.
He said: “We do know we have some outbreaks in individual care homes.
“We’re working very closely with those homes, with the support of
Public Health England, to minimise the impact and manage cases appropriately.
“Where we can we will try to isolate people. If they need to go into hospital for treatment they will do that. There’s a range of interventions.
“We’re trying to protect people and keep numbers as low as we can.”
There have been more than 16,000 deaths in hospitals from Covid-19.
The National Care Forum estimates that 4,000 people may have died in care homes as a result of the virus.