ScotGov and Care Homes
Scottish Ministers are vehemently denying any link between the policy of rapidly discharging hospital patients into Scotland's care homes at the beginning of the Covid epidemic back in March 2020.
The conclusion of a long awaited report (from NHS Scotland) is that there is no statistical evidence to link the rise in care home cases to the discharge of hospital patients.
Yet common sense would tell any reasonable person that welcoming new residents into a care home without knowing that they had tested positive for Covid-19 was a 'disaster waiting to happen'.
Between 1 March and 21 April 2020 only 650 out of the 3,599 hospital patients discharged were actually tested - only 18% of the total - and 78 (12%) of the 650 tested positive for Covid-19.
Between 22 April and 31 May 2020 the situation improved - 1493 out of 1,605 discharges were tested (93%), yet 45 patients were still discharged from hospital into care homes without testing negative for Covid-19 - which sounds like civil servant speak that they were still Covid positive.
See post below dated 28/10/20 and the official NHS Scotland press release.
So all in all a sorry tale and the most amazing thing is that the Scottish Government denies any link to its discharge policy when, in the first wave, a mere 18% of discharged patients were actually tested.
To add insult to injury the Scottish Government is now suggesting that care home staff and professional visitors, such as GPs and external contractors, were more likely to have been the source of infection - yet no statistical evidence whatsoever has produced to back up this theory.
More to follow.
Coronavirus Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon under fire for care home transfers
By David Bol - The Herald
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon
DEMANDS have been made for an urgent public inquiry into the Scottish Government’s “reckless” decision to transfer more than 100 positive coronavirus patients into care homes – with one official admitting that it is “likely that hospital discharges were the source of introduction of infection in a small number of cases”.
Nicola Sturgeon has been told that it is “essential that lessons are urgently learned” after a stark report from Public Health Scotland revealed that 113 people who had tested positive for Covid-19 were discharged from hospitals into care homes between March and May without first receiving a negative result.
