Care home nurse where seven died ‘refused to wear mask as they believed Covid was a conspiracy’

A nurse working at a care home hit by a Covid outbreak in which seven elderly residents died refused to wear a face mask as they believed the virus was a conspiracy, an inquest has heard.

The residents, who lived at Holmesley Care Home in Sidford, Devon, all died in March or April 2021 having contracted coronavirus.

Alison Longhorn, area coroner for Devon, Plymouth and Torbay, is holding inquests into the deaths of William Wilkinson, 102, Doris Lockett, 92, Roy Gilliam, 96, Jean Hartley, 81, Susan Skinner, 70, Ronald Bampfylde, 92, and Stdanislawa Koch, 93.

Jemma Turner, the nursing home’s deputy manager and registered nurse, told the hearing she was telephoned in the early hours of 2 March 2021 by a care worker saying there was a suspected outbreak.

“She was crying, saying, ‘Jemma, the residents are poorly, I don’t know what to do’,” Mrs Turner said.

“I said, ‘Where’s the nurse?’ and she said, ‘He’s refusing to wear a mask and he’s walking around the home and he’s saying that Covid is a conspiracy’.

“She said she thought he was positive too and she’d had an argument with him about doing testing.

“I told her I was on my way. I called another staff member and asked if they would come with me because I felt we possibly had an outbreak of Covid in the home.”

Mrs Turner said she started testing residents on one floor of the home and all were positive.

“I thought, ‘What am I going to do?’” she said.

She explained another staff member then questioned why she was testing all the residents.

“She said, ‘Don’t worry, we did it on Friday, the tests were a bad batch – they were all positive’,” Mrs Turner said.

“I asked her what did she mean, and she said they were a bad batch. I didn’t think the manager would disregard a positive test.”

Three days later, Mrs Turner contacted the Care Quality Commission (CQC), Devon safeguarding and the police with her concerns about the outbreak.

“No-one wanted to help me and I felt the longer we leave it, residents could potentially die,” she said.

“I think I was on the phone a good five or six hours.”

The home guidelines said that if a staff member tested positive, they should be sent home, then any resident they had been in close contact with must be isolated for 14 days and all staff and residents must be tested.

The CQC had carried out two visits in the February and told the home it was not following guidelines for the use of PPE, the hearing at County Hall in Exeter was told.

Mrs Turner also alleged managers at the home would tell staff lateral flow tests (LFTs) were negative when they were in fact positive, would not show them the tests, and would allow them to work.

“A staff member messaged me, and I told her do not go to work because you are positive, go and do a PCR test,” she said.

“I asked another staff member about whether he had a positive LFT and I asked him when that was done.

“I think he said either that day or the day before and I asked him if he had been to work, and he said yes and said the manager said he could work.”

Mrs Turner said she had told the nurse who believed coronavirus was a conspiracy that they were required to wear PPE.

“The first time I spoke to him he expressed his view of Covid was just a conspiracy and I explained that he could have his personal view but he had to keep that to himself and while working with elderly people that are frail and at risk he had to follow the guidelines,” she said.

“He told me he would. All of this was written out on a supervision form about mask wearing and daily testing and making sure he had his weekly test because there were occasions where we had to chase him up to come and do his test.

“The next time when I spoke to him, I told him he was not wearing his mask, and he needed to and that’s when he said he had medical issues and he was finding it hard to breathe.

“I said he knew the rules and needed to wear the mask, and we had not had any medical exemption.”

She said two days before the suspected outbreak the nurse had been complaining of feeling unwell but attributed it to tiredness and night working.

Mrs Turner said there was also a high turnover of staff at the nursing home, which she attributed to the heavy workloads and low staffing levels.

Asked for her overall impression of that time, Mrs Turner replied: “Awful. It’s sad for the residents.

“They should have passed away being cared for and I felt this could have been prevented.

“I also think that if I didn’t go to the police no-one would know this had potentially happened.”

A nutritionist who worked at the home, Louise Dolton, described how she initially thought the home had good Covid practices in place in the months before the outbreak.

But when she spoke to the police as they investigated the outbreak, she recounted three instances in which staff who had tested positive were asked not to leave.

She said a cook showed her a positive test and asked to leave. The manager Joe Birchall was alleged to have said "But who is going to cook?". The cook did however go home.

The statement went on to say that on 5 March care lead Nicole Da Silva tested positive and was told by the manager she had done the test wrong. She did three more, all of which were positive.

The inquest heard Ms Da Silva was told she couldn't go home and was only allowed to go when she received a call from her son's nursery because her son was not well.

Ms Dolton said a third worker, who lived on site, was told to isolate after testing positive but she saw him working a shift and was told he would only be working in areas where patients were positive.

She said it was really scary to know when she learnt that week that 33 patients had tested positive.

The hearing continues.