Care home bosses have accused the government of prioritising the NHS and not care homes – and failing to make good on promises of support.
Professor Martin Green, chief executive of Care England which represents care homes, told MPs on Tuesday that from the start of the COVID-19 pandemic care homes were a second thought despite housing the "most vulnerable people".
He also said there had been no recommendation for how care homes should react to a pandemic when the government planned for one in 2016.
Professor Green told the Health and Social Care Committee: "Our focus at the start of this pandemic was clearly the NHS, and there was not a recommendation in either the planning process that happened in 2016, or indeed in this current pandemic at the very start, that the most vulnerable people were in care homes."
Shadow social care minister Liz Kendall accused the government of being "too slow" to tackle the spread of coronavirus in care homes.
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"Social care has not had the same priority as the NHS and these services have not been treated as inexplicably linked," she said.
Sam Monaghan, chief executive of Methodist Homes, which runs 222 care homes and schemes, told the committee there was a "stark disconnect between the ongoing government rhetoric on support for care homes and the lived reality on the ground".
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Both Professor Green and Mr Monaghan said there is still no routine testing for all residents and staff, while PPE remains in short supply, with care companies having to buy it "on the open market".
Professor Green added that when tests are done, there are cases when results are lost or people are waiting too long – eight to 10 days – for results, so it is unclear whether they are current.
James Bullion, president of the Association of Directors of Social Services, added: "There isn't widespread testing. It is growing, but the care workforce is 1.6 million in this country so we are nowhere near the level of testing that's required."
He said the UK did not take into account quickly enough the risk of transmission from people going between hospitals and care homes, and also among staff.
Former health secretary Jeremy Hunt, chair of the Health and Social Care Committee, told Sky News: "I'm absolutely sure there was never any intention to expose residents in care homes.
"There may have been an unintentional effect of saying that we were doing everything to protect the NHS and that had the impact of deprioritising what was going on in care homes.
"I have to take responsibility for this, as do other previous governments, but there is a separation of the NHS and the social care system and there shouldn't be."
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Health secretary Matt Hancock told parliament: "It is appropriate, clinically, and safer for people to be discharged from a hospital into a care home."
He said it was important infection control procedures are in place and said those procedures and government guidelines have been strengthened as the clinical understandingRead More – Source
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