Coronavirus: Care home peak ‘could be months away’

‘Despite what the health secretary says about us being a priority, clearly we weren’t,’ says Care England boss

Care homes could be months away from seeing peak coronavirus infections, a senior leader in the sector has warned, as he lambasted the government’s attitude towards social care.

A day after Boris Johnson declared that Britain as a whole was past the peak of the first wave, Care England chief executive, Professor Martin Green, said there was still “no parity whatsoever” between the NHS and adult care.

Prof Green warned that the country could face a second wave if authorities do not support the sector properly, and said care homes remained “a long way behind” the peak of infections.

“Despite what the health secretary says about us being always regarded as a priority, well clearly we weren’t. At the start of this pandemic, the only narrative was ‘protect the NHS’.

“And what that manifested itself in — we had PPE supplies disrupted, we had primary care completely withdrawing from care homes.”

From the beginning of the outbreak, the government should have had plans to ensure the NHS could support residents inside care homes, he added.

While PPE supply is improving, ministers only began to publish daily updates on deaths in care in the sixth week of the UK’s lockdown — following widespread criticism of their approach.

Prof Green said: “Clearly we weren’t at the centre of this pandemic. If they knew in January we were the high-risk area, and it’s quite clear from the very start of this that people with long-term and underlying health conditions were the most vulnerable, where every single person in a care home falls into that category, why wasn’t the response quicker?”

Estimating a time-scale for the care home peak, he said: “I think it will probably, hopefully, be weeks, but it could potentially be months.”

But he said NHS England and Public Health England would be held accountable if a second peak emerged.

Responding to reports that NHS England director Professor Keith Willett told NHS chiefs that care homes will be the “epicentres of transmission” for coronavirus spreading back into society, he said: “Care homes are in this situation because of failures of NHS England and PHE and actually, if there is a second wave, it will be a continuation of their failure that produces it.”

Prof Green also said “dangerous bureaucracy” was preventing people from responding quickly to the pandemic. He said he is aware of elements of “defensive decision-making” from government officials, for fear of repercussions in any future public inquiry.

He said: “What we have got to do in future, we need a root and branch reform of the culture of Government, they need to have cultures that are quick to make decisions, and systems that enable them to implement the decisions immediately.”

Additional reporting by Press Association