Reform needed after homes failed, says care leader

Mario Kreft MBE, the chair of Care Forum Wales, spoke out in the wake of a damning report from the Senedd’s Health Committee which concluded care homes had been badly led down during the coronavirus crisis.

Among the issues flagged up were the bad decision-making around testing, PPE and discharging people from hospital into care homes in Powys and elsewhere without confirmation they were not infected.

Up until June 26, a total of 725 of the most vulnerable people had died with suspected or confirmed Covid-19 after it got inside Welsh care homes

The report criticised the lack of clarity over testing with uncertainty over who was leading, managing and coordinating the work.

The shortage of PPE had caused huge problems in the early part of the pandemic, according to the findings, and the fact that decisions took “too long” came at “great cost to the social care sector”.

The committee concluded that a number of care homes faced closure because of acute funding problems and they said there was a pressing need for “systemic reform” to recognise the people working in social care.

According to Mr Kreft, social care was a “Cinderella service” that had always been pushed to the back of the queue when it should be “placed on a pedestal” alongside the NHS.

He said: “This report is essentially confirming what we knew already and what Care Forum Wales has been saying for months that essentially care homes, their residents and staff inadvertently became collateral damage in a drive to protect the NHS from being overrrun.

“Back in February Care Forum Wales launched a campaign to Shield Social Care and Save Lives.

“As part of the campaign, we were calling for an early lockdown of care homes, a rigorous testing regime, along with an adequate supply of PPE and proper financial support to safeguard care homes from a double whammy of soaring costs and falling occupancy levels.

“Unfortunately, Care Forum Wales and our sister organisations in the other UK nations were not part of the very early decision making process in formulating a strategy to tackle the pandemic.

“A survey conducted by Care Forum Wales showed that 42 per cent of care homes felt they were being put under pressure to admit hospital patients who were Covid-19 positive or without being tested. Where this occurred, it turned safe havens into coronavirus warzones

“All these themes are now being flagged up in the report from the health committee.

“Worryingly, the message we are getting from our members is that the testing regime is patchy at best and utterly shambolic at worst.

He added: "We now need to look at the recommendations in this important report learn lessons for the future, particularly in case there is a second wave of Covid-19.

“We need a national action plan that includes an immediate policy shift to put social care on a par with the NHS, creating a national service that is properly funded because it is, as the First Minister pointed out, the scaffold that supports the NHS."