Nursing home, Covid outbreaks roughly twice a week

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It comes amid concern that health and care workers are struggling to perform PCR and lateral flow tests, increasing risks for those in their care. Chris Hobson, chief executive of the NHS Providers, which represents hospitals, said improving access to testing was one of the sectors’ most urgent priorities.

The latest figures for England show 24,632 NHS staff are out of work or isolated due to Covid – double the 12,240 two weeks ago.

Hobson said the lack of space in care homes had exacerbated the crisis, adding: “There is one neighborhood in London where almost all care homes have closed to new admissions due to a combination of outbreaks and staff shortages.

“The funds that have been able to make some progress in getting patients out of the hospital before Christmas say it’s getting harder now because of this.”

However, he said that so far it did not appear that outbreaks had led to large numbers of hospitalizations, adding: “Trust CEOs say it’s interesting that we haven’t had any acceptance from those outbreaks.

“If we were really likely to be at the end of a very big boom, with seriously ill elderly people, you would think an outbreak in nursing homes would be a potential place where you would start to see a huge increase in admissions — but the evidence so far is that we don’t see that.”

Mr Hobson said it was too early to be sure this trend would not happen, but added that the lack of hospital admissions from care homes – where the vast majority of the population is vaccinated – was “further evidence to suggest that, in fact, we can’t see that increase”.

“We hope that the face-to-face visit will continue as usual.”

Caroline Abrahams, director of charity at Age UK, said: “We’ve always known that sooner or later omicron will enter care homes because it is highly contagious, but numbers like this are a real concern.

“The next two or three weeks will be critical as we see if this trend continues, but more importantly is the number of these cases that translate into critical illness, hospitalizations and deaths associated with Covid. We hope and pray that older people who contract the omicron variant are protected by their boosters and that Their immunity holds up well.

“Despite these omicron concerns, we hope that face-to-face visitation will continue as normal in as many care homes as possible, with the support of applicable government guidance. This is really important for seniors, who often have regular contact with their loved ones more than anything else. “.

She said care services in many areas were already in crisis due to the number of sick or self-isolating staff, with fears the situation could worsen.

Dr William Welfare, Director of National Incidents at the UK’s Health Security Agency, said: “We continue to actively search for infection in care home staff and residents through regular testing and, where found, are dealing with cases and outbreaks to reduce any further transmission.”

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