The government needs to ensure care homes are not abandoned again

Editorial: The failure to protect people in nursing homes should spur urgent reform to integrate the care sector with the ‘core’ NHS

Care homes have sometimes struggled to get help from hospitals during the pandemic, according to a new survey (EPA)

We do not need a public inquiry to know that the abandonment of many care homes was one of the worst mistakes made in responding to the coronavirus outbreak. As we report today, a survey of nurses and managers in the care sector has confirmed that nursing homes were put under pressure to accept patients from hospitals who had either tested positive for coronavirus or not been tested at all.

The survey, by the Queen’s Nursing Institute, also found that many homes struggled to get help for sick residents from hospitals, GPs and district nurses; and that hospitals and GPs imposed unlawful “do not resuscitate” orders on some residents.

Some of these failings arose from the best of motives at a time when decisions were being taken under pressure about a disease that was not well understood. The effort to discharge as many patients from hospitals as possible, for example, seemed to make sense to hospital managers when ministers were worried about the NHS being “overwhelmed” by cases. But it would seem that the policy continued long after some care homes simply refused to accept patients, and after they pointed out the dangers of spreading the virus to vulnerable residents.