A warning from overseas of how quickly the virus can resurge.
HC-One – the country’s largest For Profit with around 330 homes – says it has experienced coronavirus outbreaks in 70 of its facilities, with 20 in the past two weeks.
The UK’s arm of Bupa also told The Guardian that in the last 28 days, people had tested positive at 21 of its homes – around one in six of its 130 facilities – while another larger operator Care UK has had positive tests at 19 of its 110 homes.
However, Public Health England (PHE) only has records of 134 new possible or confirmed outbreaks in UK aged care homes up to 21 September – suggesting some outbreaks are not being reported to the authorities or the Government is behind in its data collection.
Outbreaks are defined as two or more residents and staff at a home testing positive.
“It is essential that we have a full and accurate picture of care home infections and it is worrying that one of the country’s major care home providers has reported rates that seem to be considerably higher than those of official figures,” said Labour MP and Shadow Care Minister Liz Kendall.
Operators say infections are increasing, more among staff. But despite the Government promising aged care staff weekly testing – with monthly testing for residents – operators have pointed to delays of a week – or longer – in receiving results while infected staff may be passing on the virus.
HC-One told the paper that between 19 and 25 September, tests of over 1,000 staff at 12 of its homes took more than a week to come back.
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care said aged care residents and staff are being prioritised for repeat testing with more than 700,000 tests carried out between 3 and 16 September.
Does this level need to be increased then?
