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A care home manager has criticised the NHS for putting patients and staff at risk during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Theresa Steed, who is home manager at Tunbridge Wells Care Centre, told a Parliamentary select committee that health service staff withheld information from care homes as they desperately sought to discharge patients from hospitals to free up beds.
Like many other care settings, the Upper Grosvenor Road facility felt pressured to admit new residents - even if they were unsure if they risked bringing coronavirus into the home.
However, according the operators of the home Canford Healthcare, Ms Steed and her colleagues stood firm, refusing to take new admissions where hospitals would not provide crucial information relating to the patient's illness, including basic observations such as temperature checks.
The home was only able to access its own Covid-19 tests at the end of May, identifying at least 17 positive results among residents since then. Six residents, who were described as being at the end of life, also had a positive test prior to their death and the home says it is therefore possible the virus shortened their expected life span.
Speaking to the joint select committee last week, Ms Steed told joint-chairmen Jeremy Hunt MP and Greg Clark MP that a lack of information and openness from the NHS in the early days and weeks of the crisis left people exposed to even greater risk.
Ms Steed said: "During the first wave the biggest impact was hospitals being asked to empty as many beds as possible for the Covid patients coming in, they were told to get them out to as many care homes as possible.
Watch: Theresa Steed gives evidence to Covid-19 hearing
"What wasn’t being given to the care homes was the information as to whether these people were Covid or not, because they were informed by the government that they didn’t need to be tested.
"From my point of view, as a manager of the home, I had a person that needed to be assessed, but then I also had the residents that were in the home, the staff and visitors that were coming in.
"The impact on all of those, by not being given that information, was huge. We were putting them at risk.
"Hospitals did not take that on board, they did not seem to want to listen to that, so we did turn people down and we turned them down because they could not give me evidence, or even back-up paperwork, of their checks for the last seven days. They weren’t prepared to give us that information."
Continuing her evidence at the hearing, the home manager recounted an example of a time she felt she was misled by NHS staff about the extent of infection on the wards.
"I had a person that I needed to go and assess, and I actually called the ward, I had already been told that Covid was on the ward, and I called them to ask ‘does this person have Covid’," she told the committee.
"The matron actually called me and said ‘who gave you that information, it’s false, we don’t have Covid on the ward’.
"Half an hour later I went in to do an assessment and went and checked that ward, and it was closed because of Covid. It was being hidden.
"We all needed to be given the information and the facts to be able to deal with it, not hide things, because we are actually working in it together.
"The hospital had the information at community levels, and we were actually being kept blind, which was keeping people at risk."
In May, during the first wave of the pandemic, deaths in care homes made up 40% of all Covid-19 fatalities recorded in Kent.
Ms Steed told the hearing testing was "non-existent" for care homes at the start of the crisis, with other areas of the health service given priority in the early stages of the pandemic.
She also spoke about the impact of Covid deaths on both families and staff members working at the home.
"Having someone pass away with Covid, whether it’s direct or linked to, has a massive impact on families," she said.
"Being able to support the staff and the families that actually are sitting with their loved ones not knowing whether they can take their masks off and give their mum and dad a kiss and a hug at the end – it's really hard."
Responding to the evidence given by Ms Steed to Parliament last week, the NHS acknowledged lessons will have to be learnt from experiences earlier in the year.
Wilf Williams, strategic lead for the NHS response to coronavirus in Kent and Medway, said: "At the start of the pandemic only those patients displaying symptoms were tested prior to being discharged to nursing and care homes. As testing capacity increased, and following national guidance, this was extended to all patients in early April regardless of whether they were displaying symptoms or not.
"Hospitals will only admit patients with Covid-19 symptoms if there is a clinical need, otherwise the patient should self-isolate in their care home as per the government guidance.
"Support is also offered directly to homes where there are any positive cases and mitigation is put in place to not only support the residents or staff affected but also to prevent spread.”
