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The body representing the NHS trusts says the lack of evidence could have meant that some COVID-19 patients were discharged from hospitals to nursing homes.
NHS providers denied that trusts knowingly moved patients with coronavirus in social assistance.
But the group’s executive director, Chris Hopson, said hospitals were only to “systematically screen each patient for discharge from social care” on April 15, after the virus spike hit.
Hopson said this meant that it was possible “for a very small number of asymptomatic COVID-19 the patients, who were confident that they could not perform the test before that date, were discharged to social assistance. “
Boris Johnson said yesterday that there was a testing system for patients who went from hospitals to social care.
Speaking to Kay Burley @ Breakfast, Health Minister Edward Argar said the suggestion that nursing homes had been “abandoned” or “disadvantaged” was “completely wrong.”
But Mr. Argar said the tests initially focused on “NHS frontline staff to make sure the NHS was there to serve people.”
“It is correct to speak of … in mid-April, when the ability was there in the testing system to make sure that those who enter nursing homes can be tested and, in fact, all the staff of the nursing home” said the minister.
Labor has called on the prime minister to account for official figures showing 10,000 “unexplained” excess deaths in nursing homes last month.
The party’s shadow welfare minister, Liz Kendall, said the government needed to “control this crisis, implement a comprehensive strategy to support welfare homes, and give all social care services priority and resources. they deserve. “
Niall Dickson, executive director of the NHS Confederation, which represents organizations across the health sector, said nursing homes are where “the main battle with COVID-19 is being fought” and the sector has been “neglected” for too much time.
“When this is over, it will be time to address our collective failure to address social care, which is nothing short of national disgrace,” said Mr. Dickson.
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Hopson said any public consultation “will have to consider the role that lack of proof and PPE has played in the large number of deaths in nursing homes.”
He added that “the scandal here is the repeated failure of politicians to resolve our long-standing welfare crisis.”
The prime minister’s spokesman said yesterday that there is a “regime in which people leaving the hospital are being evaluated and nursing homes have clear guidance to say they must take all necessary precautions against the spread of the coronavirus in their facilities. “
