By Tests promised for care home residents and staff
The UK Government has now promised that all care home residents and staff with Covid-19 symptoms will be tested.
This comes as Health Secretary Matt Hancock says he is “determined” to ensure everyone who needed a test had access to one, promising to achieve some 100,000 tests per day:
“I am now setting the goal of 100,000 tests per day by the end of this month. That is the goal, and I am determined we’ll get there.
“These are unprecedented times for our healthcare system, and I want to make sure that every part of it is supported.
“I therefore made £300m available for funding for community pharmacies, who do so much to get vital medicines to people and play such an important part in their communities.”
Thus far, the approach has been to test the first five care home residents who display symptoms, in order to establish whether there is an outbreak of the virus.
But care providers have been calling for greater support and testing for several weeks, with people displaying symptoms at over 2000 homes.
They have claimed that this means Covid-19 related deaths among care home residents and staff were being “airbrushed” out of official figures.
Labour have supported the drive, but have called for greater transparency on coronavirus legislation and the government’s approach to tackling the crisis.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak has warned of “tough times” ahead for the economy due to the economic impact of the pandemic, but has insisted that the government’s approach is “not a case of choosing between the economy and public health.”
Nick Triggle, Health Correspondent for the BBC has said that logistically, delivering this kind of testing is difficult, especially at the rate of 100,000 tests a day, as pledged by Health Secretary Matt Hancock:
“The most tests carried out in one day is 18,000. Doing around 50,000 a day certainly looks possible in the coming weeks, but the 100,000 a day pledged by the government will be a stretch.
“Logistically, delivering the testing will remain challenging. More than 400,000 frail and vulnerable people are spread across more than 11,000 locations.
“Compare that to around 200 hospitals and it is easy to see how difficult it will be to get out to homes to carry out the tests and then process them quickly enough.
“The nature of care home residents, many of whom struggle with dementia, means it can be difficult for them to follow social distancing and good hand hygiene guidance.
“They rely on care home staff for intimate personal care, putting both staff and residents at risk as soon as the virus gets into a home.”
Every year around 150,000 care home residents die. As more than one in five deaths in England and Wales are now linked to coronavirus, the fear now is that the number of deaths of vulnerable people could increase dramatically.
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