Covid care home staff ‘very scared’

CARE home staff were “very scared” to go to work during the Covid-19 pandemic in case they brought the virus back home with them, an inquiry has heard.

Paul Arkison, GMB Scotland senior organiser, told the Scottish Covid-19 inquiry that carers sometimes didn’t go home after shifts in order to protect vulnerable family members from the virus.

He said it was “difficult to recall a care home that wasn’t affected by Covid”, which he said was exacerbated by the transfer of untested patients from hospitals to care homes early on in the pandemic, and the widespread use of agency care staff who worked in multiple care homes.

Increasing numbers of agency staff were needed, the inquiry heard, due to the number of care staff falling ill or having to shield or selfisolate during the pandemic, on top of an existing recruitment crisis in the sector.

Stuart Gale KC, co-lead counsel to the inquiry, read out part of Mr Arkison’s written statement to the inquiry: “(I) remember speaking to members who would be phoning us to say that they were very scared going to work, knowing that they would be returning home and potentially taking the virus back home with them.

“This was a very profound moment for us, and it’s one of the things that I will always remember.”

Mr Arkison replied: “The reality was carers have their own families and their own issues as well. And I do remember some carers, when they got time off or days off, they actually wouldn’t go home. They would actually stay on-site to minimise the risk for their family.”

He added that the physical and emotional strain on carers during the pandemic had been “enormous”, echoed in evidence given by Rozanne Foyer, general secretary of the Scottish Trades Union Congress.