NHS Wales: Efforts to isolate Covid patients may have contributed to spread of virus in hospitals
Efforts to isolate patients with Covid during the pandemic may have contributed to the spread of infection in hospitals, an NHS Wales report has found.
The highly anticipated report said ageing buildings and a lack of isolation facilities made it difficult to isolate Covid patients, meaning they were often moved around multiple wards.
NHS Wales is investigating around 18,000 cases of suspected hospital-acquired Covid between March 2020 and April 2022.
Figures show people are still catching Covid in hospital, with 232 cases in the seven days leading up to 19 March, according to Public Health Wales data. Due to reduced testing, that number is likely to be higher.
It comes as the UK Covid-19 Inquiry investigates core political and administrative decision-making in Wales throughout pandemic.
Dr Chris Jones, Deputy Chief Medical Officer for Wales, outlines some of the report's key findings
Dr Chris Jones, the Deputy Chief Medical Officer for Wales, said: "The efforts we made to keep people safe by cohorting people with Covid in one ward separate from everybody else possibly, in the end, had some adverse consequences as well, because people were being moved around the hospital.
"Some of the investigations have suggested that all this movement contributed a little bit to the risk, even though it was designed to keep people safe."
The programme, funded by the Welsh Government, aims to provide answers for families and staff and gather learning for the future.
This first half of the report has investigated more than 5,000 cases and focuses on the first year of the pandemic.
It found visiting restrictions during the pandemic had "many adverse effects" on the physical and mental health of patients.
Additionally, bereavement support came too late for some families of those who died after catching the virus in hospital.
There were also concerns over the use of Do Not Attempt Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation (DNACPR) orders - the clinical decision not to restart a patient's heart or breathing if it stops.
A DNACPR decision does not require consent from a next of kin or carer, unless the patient lacks capacity, but the investigation highlighted the importance of communication with families.
It also highlighted that families often had rely on clinical teams and ward staff to connect with their loved ones, which could be difficult during busy periods.
Dr Chris Jones said: "There are some findings about different aspects of communication, they realised that patients didn't always know how to raise a concern with the health board, and that's been corrected during the programme.
"They realised that when people couldn't visit, perhaps in some cases more could have been done to enable families to be in communication with the patient.
"This process is a real honest attempt to be as open and transparent as possible. It's a massive undertaking to commit to investigating every single possible case, and that is what is happening.
"The learning from what has happened is actually driving changes in the NHS, so there's a process of continuous improvement."
Important NHS Wales is 'open' with people
Wales' Health Minister Eluned Morgan welcomed the interim report.
She said: "I am committed to ensuring this learning will lead to meaningful change and improvements in the quality and safety of patient care.
"It is important that NHS Wales is open with people and their relatives and that clinical teams undertake investigations to determine what happened, what can be learned and what needs to happen next to minimise the likelihood of the incident happening to anyone else. It is important that they share outcomes and learning from these investigations, so care continually improves."