The staff and families demanding answers after care home policy branded 'reckless and appalling'

Watch a report by ITV News Anglia's Natalie Gray

MPs on a powerful Commons committee have branded the decision to advise hospitals to discharge thousands of patients into care homes without knowing if they had coronavirus as a "reckless" and "appalling" policy error.

Families and staff in the Anglia region are demanding answers after more than 1,300 care home residents died during the pandemic.

Christine Newham, from Heacham in Norfolk, is sad and angry.   She lost her partner Jim Aldridge to coronavirus: "Everybody discharged from hospital should have had a test beforehand shouldn't they?"

The Commons cross-party Public Accounts Committee said in its report that discharging around 25,000 patients to free up beds was an example of the Government's "slow, inconsistent and at times negligent" approach to social care.

It added that it was "concerned" that the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) had continued with the policy "even once it was clear there was an emerging problem".

In the Anglia region, 1,370 care home residents have died during the coronavirus pandemic which with about one quarter of the Covid-19 deaths recorded in the area.

Raj Sehgal is the Director of Armscare Homes for The Elderly in West Norfolk and he is scathing about the government's handling of the pandemic.

ITV News obtained the discharges data in June, and found 25,060 people were discharged from hospital into care homes without being routinely tested for Covid-19 in England.

It was only on April 16 that blanket testing of all discharges began.

According to the Office of National statistics, more than 1,300 people with coronavirus have died in care homes in the Anglia region. Credit: PA Images

The PAC said nobody would expect the Government to get everything right in its initial response, but that it "urgently needs to reflect, acknowledge its mistakes, and learn from them".

Testing, it says, should have been made available to hospital patients and social care staff "much more quickly".

And it identified a lack of transparency around the availability of personal protective equipment (PPE), with a tendency for the Government to "overpromise and under deliver".

In some parts of the Anglia region, between one third and a half of all the coronavirus deaths have occurred in care homes.

In South Norfolk, 57% of the pandemic fatalities have been in care homes with 33 of the 58 people dying in the area losing their lives in a care home. In Cambridge, 52% of the 82 deaths were in care homes with 44% in Stevenage and 42% in North Hertfordshire.

A Department for Health and Social Care spokesman said: "Throughout this unprecedented global pandemic we have been working closely with the sector and public health experts to put in place guidance and support for adult social care.

"Alongside an extra £1.3 billion to support the hospital discharge process, we have provided 172 million items of PPE to the social care sector since the start of the pandemic and are testing all residents and staff, including repeat testing for staff and residents in care homes for over-65 or those with dementia."

According to the Office of National Statistics, 1,370 people have died in care homes across the Anglia region since the start of the pandemic.

The death rate varies from places to place with 29 deaths per 100,000 people in Milton Keynes and 13 deaths per 100,000 in Bedfordshire.

Care home deaths in the Anglia region since the start of the pandemic

  • Bedfordshire - 86 deaths (13 per 100,000 population)

  • Cambridgeshire - 156 deaths (18 per 100,000 population)

  • Essex - 275 deaths (15 per 100,000 population)

  • Hertfordshire - 290 deaths (24 per 100,000 population)

  • Milton Keynes - 77 deaths (29 per 100,000 population)

  • Norfolk - 146 deaths (16 per 100,000 population)

  • Northants - 153 deaths (20 per 100,000 population)

  • Suffolk - 187 deaths (25 per 100,000 population)

During the peak of the pandemic in the middle of April, 200 care home residents a week were dying with coronavirus in the Anglia region.

In July the weekly death toll in care homes was below 20.

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