Patients placed in our care homes without virus test
Just 41 of 167 discharge patients checked
NHS Lanarkshire have refused to say which care homes potentially received COVID-positive patients in the early stages of lockdown.
It was revealed last month that 167 patients were discharged to care homes across the region in March and April as hospitals looked to make beds available for the influx of coronavirus patients.
But just 41 of those patients were tested, three of whom returned a positive result. That meant 126 patients were discharged to care homes without being tested.
Central Scotland MSP Monica Lennon has since written to the health board to find out which care homes were affected – but the request was refused as being “manifestly unreasonable”.
Ms Lennon asked if NHS Lanarkshire could rule out care homes such as Whitehills care home in East Kilbride, which was at the centre of high-profile
COVID-19 outbreaks, but without success.
She previously called on Whitehills Care Home – where 23 residents died from COVID-19 – to be be investigated by the Lord Advocate.
Labour ’s spokeswoman for health demanded all care home deaths in Scotland be thoroughly investigated at the highest level.
This week she questioned NHS Lanarkshire’s justification for not releasing the information and is now seeking a review of the decision.
She said :“We are now in a second wave of the pandemic, but families who lost loved ones in the early stages of the first wave still don’t have answers about the transfer of patients between Lanarkshire hospitals and care homes.
“It’s not too much to ask that NHS Lanarkshire provides a list of care homes that received hospital patients between March and May, how many had been tested in advance and how many tested positive for COVID-19.
If they don’t know the answer, that’s extremely worrying.
“Transparency can save lives and we all want to ensure lessons have been learned.
“Whilst no one wants to create additional work for NHS staff, it’s vital that procedures and data monitoring are fit for purpose. The Scottish Government should provide additional resources if NHS Lanarkshire doesn’ t have time to review this vital information.
“It is not‘ unreasonable’ to request this information on behalf of my constituents– it is the least that families deserve. It’s just not right that NHS Lanarkshire refuses to say whether hospital patients with COVID-19 were transferred to local care homes with a high number of deaths, such as Highgate in Uddingston and Whitehills Care Home in East Kilbride.
“In recent days there have been hospital outbreaks in Glasgow and Edinburgh. There should be no room for secrecy or complacency, and I urge the
Scottish Government to work with health boards to publish the facts.”
When patients were discharged from hospitals to care homes in March and April this year, NHS Lanarkshire followed government guidance.
In order to make available the information requested by Ms Lennon, NHS Lanarkshire say staff would have to “trawl through” hundreds of patients records.
Gabe Docherty, director of public health, said; “Ever y member of our public health team is working incredibly hard to deal with the constant daily challenges of COVID-19.
“The information requested is not centrally recorded, it is held within each individual patient record.
“To provide this information would mean one of the team would have to stop doing their regular work to trawl through each one of the hundreds of patient records to obtain this information.”