Care Campaign for the Vulnerable is learning of the pressures faced by conscientious led Care Providers striving to offer a caring and safe environment to both service users and staff. Safety monitoring is proving to be a invaluable care assist tool - bringing a more open and transparent culture into care homes as well as saving valuable resources within the care home sector and the NHS
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CCFTV leads the call for a Public Inquiry on Government handling of care homes during Coronavirus pandemic
CARE CAMPAIGN FOR THE VULNERABLE LEADING THE CALL FOR A PUBLIC INQUIRY TO THE GOVERNMENT HANDLING OF CARE HOMES DURING THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC
Please be reassured carers and families that contact Care Campaign for the Vulnerable have been/are being supported and we are in regular contact. All messages sent to our organisation have been identified and authenticated and we have been advised CQC have been informed and the relevant authorities contacted.
Care Campaign for the Vulnerable and our supporters urge this Government to hold a Public Inquiry into the high number of deaths occurring in care homes.
Janet Gibbs (far right) sadly passed away from Coronavirus in her care home
Mrs Diana Reeve sadly passed away on 1st may after contracting coronavirus in her care home just weeks after this photo was taken by her daughter.
CQC Registered Care Home Manager
A senior care worker
A CQC Care Home Manager
A Care Home Deputy Manager, Eastriding Yorkshire
Care Campaign for the Vulnerable
Long before the COVID-19 pandemic elderly social care has always struggled to get the help and support it deserves. Care and nursing homes house a high percentage of people living with dementia and as their continued care increases so do their medical needs. From the start of this lockdown, we accepted that vulnerable elderly needed to be protected and safeguarded against this deadly virus. Reports are coming into CCFTV every day with relatives reporting a delay in medical treatment to elderly loved ones. Families are also telling us elderly family members are not having their underlining medical conditions addressed while in lockdown. If this wasn’t difficult enough, care partners/families are instructed to stay away.
Families are angry saying before restrictions were put in place many assisted in their care ensuring safety and good care especially elderly living with middle or later stage dementia and noted often when staff numbers were low or the care fell short. The high number of care home deaths sits very uncomfortably with us. We have been told by families that hospitals have discharged elderly back into care homes without informing managers that the patient had or is recovering from COVID 19. We are told by registered care home managers, care workers and families that there is a considerable delay in calling out ambulances to elderly falling ill and symptoms not associated with COVID 19.
Families also tell us staff members were faced with a shortage or insufficient wearing of PPE. There were Care Providers at the very beginning of the pandemic that failed to prepare. Families and Care Home Managers contacted us to say GP's are using conference calls on iPads to monitor elderly patients with a high temperature as well as other symptoms and putting symptoms down to "suspected" Coronavirus and therefore denying further medical treatment. A CQC registered care home manager contacted Care Campaign For The Vulnerable confirming this devastating account telling us she refused to follow this policy by calling out ambulances and said by doing so she received a "backlash".
CCFTV is very concerned older people are being discharged from hospitals into care homes without any disclosure about their positive Covid status. Whilst we understand that a minimum bed vacancy in NHS hospitals may be necessary to provide an immediate response to any sudden re-infection outbreak, it is nevertheless a damning indictment as to the value of older people when infection risk is deliberately and wilfully passed to vulnerable people living in care homes. We know that in certain parts of the country any hospital to care home discharge proceeds only with a Covid test result. Whilst that is still unacceptable if positive - given the risk to unwell residents already in situ - at least the test disclosure enables the receiving care home to undertake any necessary isolation procedures.
To find out that a hospital had attempted to discharge a patient (who was recovering from Covid) into a care facility but fail to inform that home of her Covid status borders on wilful negligence. It's beyond appalling to have to believe that a decision was made to conceal her test results simply to effect her discharge. That decision shows a callous disregard for the welfare of the older people living in that care centre.
When this Coronavirus crisis has passed, CCFTV will call for a public enquiry specifically to review the actions of Government and those social care agencies currently involved in the oversight of COVID 19 protocols for the Care Sector. It appears to us that care home residents have effectively been considered as ‘dispensable’ when prioritising the public response. Indeed even today we apparently have significant bed availability in NHS hospitals and specialist Nightingale response sites, yet residents with Covid languish untested and untreated in care homes because they are deemed ‘end of life’.
Care Campaign for the Vulnerable and our supporters call for a Public Inquiry into the high number of care home deaths.
A Registered Care Home Manager
Care Campaign for the Vulnerable contacted a care home manager when families contacted us unhappy with staff wearing no PPE around vulnerable residents during the lockdown.
Janet Gibbs died in a care home after her family were told she tested positive for coronavirus on April 7th - two days later when the results came back Mrs Gibbs sadly passed away. (Family supported by CCFTV)
References
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1269091/Care-homes-coronavirus-janet-gibbs-latest
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CCFTV and Slater and Gordon UK lead the call for a public inquiry on the handling of care homes during the Covid pandemic.
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Care Campaign for the Vulnerable is learning of the pressures faced by conscientious led Care Providers striving to offer a caring and safe environment to both service users and staff. Safety monitoring is proving to be a invaluable care assist tool - bringing a more open and transparent culture into care homes as well as saving valuable resources within the care home sector and the NHS
