“CARE HOMES have worked tirelessly through this extremely difficult time to help support their residents and I would like to voice my thanks to all of them for this.”
That’s the view of Cllr Charles Margetts, the executive member for adult services, who was responding to a question from Cllr UllaKarin Clark about the way in which care homes have done all they can to limit the spread of coronavirus.
It was asked at a virtual meeting of Wokingham Borough Council, held on Thursday, May 28.
“Last month the Borough Council took the unprecedented decision to go against Government guidelines by refusing to take patients discharged from hospital into some care homes unless it was certain they did not have coronavirus,” he said.
“At the same time, the Council and partners across the health service set up a ‘task force’ of specialist to work with care homes to make sure they were ready to cope with patients who had the virus.
“The task force has now worked with all care homes but 14 intensively in order to make sure they can start to take hospital discharges again.
“As with care homes across the country, those in Wokingham Borough have been coping with a very difficult situation during this crisis. People have died of Covid-19 in our homes and our thoughts are with them, their loved ones and the staff who are caring for them.”
The council had also lobbied MPs and the local resilience forum for increased testing in the borough’s homes.
“Despite this lobbying and support, Government guidelines continued to allow the potential discharge of patients with coronavirus into our care homes, so we took the decision to stop hospital discharge into our care homes unless the patient has tested negative and been without symptoms or our task force had made sure the care home could cope with positive cases.
“This task force has now visited 14 care homes and we are now at the place where discharges from hospital can take place more safely into some of these homes. I would like to personally thank all care home staff for the immense effort they are putting in to keep people supported in the most difficult of situations.”
Other ways in which the council had helped was an improved funding deal for care homes, help with supplying PPE, offering regular advice and guidance and tested more than 250 staff members.
There has also been an emergency and infection control hotline.
