Nursing in Practice May/June 2020 (issue 114) | Page 6

4 NEWS Care homes ‘facing delayed coronavirus p Care home directors warned adult social care had not yet faced its highest number of coronavirus cases a week after Boris Johnson declared the UK had passed the peak. Social care bosses urged the Government to do more to help the sector, after coronavirus-related deaths almost doubled in a week. The Office for National Statistics revealed deaths in care homes related to Covid-19 went up from 3,096 to 5,890 between the week ending 17 April and 24 April. This was an increase of 2,794 deaths. Mike Padgham, chair of the Independent Care Group, which represents independent care providers in York and North Yorkshire, told Nursing in Practice on 7 May he did not ‘think the peak for care homes and the community has been reached... We feel very much in the front line and forgotten’. Mr Padgham, who is also managing director at Saint Cecilia’s Care Group in Scarborough, continued: ‘In the early days of the outbreak, the Government didn’t think it would impact care homes very much. The attention was on the NHS. The Government only looked to care homes late in the day.’ He was also concerned about accessing personal protective equipment for staff as the cost of it had become ‘enormous’. A face mask cost 17.5p on average at the beginning of April but jumped to £1 towards the end of the month, he said. ‘It’s not sustainable for people to carry on in the sector without some financial help.’ George Coxon, a care home owner and director in Devon, agreed that ‘we haven’t seen the peak in care homes’ and was worried that social care had not been supported enough in the long term, making it even harder to tackle the outbreak. The workforce was ‘very volatile and very transient’, he said. Care England chief executive Professor Martin Green said the latest ONS data showed it was important to ensure care home staff had the correct personal protection equipment. ‘We fear that worse may be to come. It is ever more essential to ensure sufficient PPE and testing for staff and residents in conjunction with a long-term economic plan to ensure that the sector is adequately resourced to cope in the short, medium and long term.’ h i l h f nursinginpractice.com May/June 2020