This week, concerns in the social care industry are growing about a potential repeat of last spring when Covid ripped through UK care homes.
With Covid infections and hospitalisations on the rise, the NHS is taking steps to ease the pressure by discharging patients to care homes, private homes and even hotels.
NHS documents cited by newspaper reports state that hospitals plan once again to discharge patients into care homes without a negative Covid test, as happened - with devastating consequences - last year.
The documents say patients will not be swabbed but will need to have been isolating for 14 days and that if clinicians assess a patient has no new Covid symptoms or exposure - and has completed their isolation period - they can be discharged directly to a care home without a further coronavirus test in the 48 hours before discharge.
The move follows calls by NHS Providers for care home “spare capacity” to be accessed in parts of London, south-east England and east England where hospitals, community services and community support at home services are full.
Social care officials were wary of further discharges to care homes said to be already overstretched with individual services hit hard by staff absences.
In a survey of its members, the National Care Forum found some services reporting staffing absences of over 50 per cent in some cases.
The challenges faced by social care are laid bare by the latest ONS figures that showed care home deaths in the week up to 1 January were the highest since mid-May.
With the spike in infections expected to last into at least February, it is imperative that the government makes good on its pledge to vaccinate all English care home residents by the end of January.
Despite the ramping up of the roll-out, however, that target is in severe danger of being missed. As of Tuesday, around a quarter of “older” care home residents had been given their first dose, according to Health Secretary Matt Hancock.
That contrasts with Scotland, which as of 12 January had given a first jab to more than 80 per cent of care home residents.
Late on Wednesday, it emerged NHS England has ordered GPs to give all care home residents and staff their first jab by 24 January at the latest in a rapid escalation of the vaccination programme.
Care groups in England have called on the NHS to publish a daily figure of how many care home residents have received a vaccine. This publication endorses that ambition.
