'National disgrace' - Hartlepool councillor brands care home covid decision 'a disaster waiting to happen'

Cllr Stephen Thomas, council mental health champion, said the situation nationally earlier this year was a ‘disaster waiting to happen’.

He made the comments at the latest meeting of Hartlepool Borough Council Adult and Community Based Services Committee.

Councillors also heard this week how infection rates in the borough’s care homes were reaching levels similar to that of the first spike.

Cllr Carl Richardson had asked council officers if care homes knew at the start of the first wave that residents being discharged from hospital could potentially have Covid-19.

Jill Harrison, council director of adult and community based services, noted in March testing arrangements were not in place, meaning care homes could have been accepting people without being aware they had Covid-19.

She said: “The arrangements that are in place currently are very different to what was in place earlier in the pandemic.

“In the early stages of the pandemic when people were initially being discharged in March the testing arrangements weren’t in place, so people were discharged to care homes without having a test.

“It’s correct to say at that time homes potentially were accepting people back into the home or new admissions to the home without being aware at that time whether those people were Covid positive or not.”

She added testing has now moved on significantly with arrangements in place for anybody being discharged from hospital to be tested, and those results are communicated.

Additionally testing is now in place for people pre-admission or on admission to hospital and throughout the hospital stay.

There is also now regular weekly testing in place for all care homes residents and care home staff.

Cllr Stephen Thomas remarked the original lack of arrangements will be viewed as a ‘massive mistake’ and in his opinion led to ‘unnecessary deaths’.

He said: “Once all this is over, and once we start to look back at what happened during Covid, I think it will become eminently clear that what happened at the start of the pandemic around some of those discharge issues was really a national disgrace, it was just a disaster waiting to happen.

“The way in which discharge happened at that time introduced Covid into care homes and was responsible for many, many unnecessary deaths, in my opinion.

“When we look back at that we will see that was a massive, massive mistake.

“Whilst we understand the pressures on hospital beds at that point in time, I think the way in which people were discharged into settings, and care homes are all about vulnerable people, was just really quite shocking.”

He added he was pleased to hear better arrangements are now in place which will hopefully prevent the same issues occurring again.

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