UK guidance on discharging hospital patients to care homes is likely to form a key plank of a future public inquiry into the government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, according to law firm Kingsley Napley.
In a note on the crisis, Kingsley Napley partner Sophie Kemp said the “worrying correlation” between discharges from hospitals under the guidance, the incubation period of Covid-19, and the accelerated care home death rate, will “almost certainly” bring the guidance into the scope of any future public inquiry.
On 2 April, the government published guidance on the discharge of patients from hospitals to care homes.
The guidance, ‘Admission and Care of Patients during COVID-19 Incident in a Care Home’, advised that Covid-19 patients, whether symptomatic or asymptomatic, can be safely cared for in a care home if the guidance is followed.
“Controversially, the guidance expressly permitted the return of hospital patients to care homes without the need for a test: put simply, the guidance allows for discharge of asymptomatic patients to care homes, with only social distancing measures in place, whilst symptomatic patients are isolated, with staff tasked to immediately instigate full infection control measures,” said Kemp.
“The guidance to care home staff was that those coming into contact with a Covid-19 patient while not wearing PPE could remain at work,” she added.
Kemp noted that the guidance “immediately alarmed" those working in the care sector.
They included the National Care Forum, who “highlighted their concerns about the practicality of social distancing in care homes, the risks posed to unprotected staff (whose exposure to symptomatic patients was not likely to be short lived as the guidance assumes), and whether full consideration had been given to the availability of PPE in the care sector,” she added.
Kemp said care home guidance was likely to be one of four areas that would form part of the terms of reference of any future Covid-19 inquiry.
The others include early decision making/pandemic planning; PPE guidance; and PPE supply and resourcing.
“When the crisis subsides the calls will be harder to resist. For one thing, the political pressure is likely to mount. Perhaps more importantly, the government is also likely to find itself compelled to hold an inquiry by the obligations imposed on it by…the European Convention of Human Rights,” she said.
