Coronavirus spreading in care homes again, Government warns

Coronavirus has begun spreading through care homes and infecting vulnerable patients again, the Government has admitted in a nationwide alert issued to providers and local authorities.

A letter, seen by The Telegraph, was issued late on Friday urging bosses to "take necessary action to prevent and limit outbreaks" amid rising infection rates among the elderly.

The letter, written by Stuart Miller, the director of adult social care delivery at the Department of Health and Social Care, warns all care providers, local authority chief executives and directors of adult social care that there are the "first signs" of rising infections being "reflected in care homes".

He writes: "Over the past three days, Public Health England has reported an increase in notifications of Covid-19 cases in care homes. Testing data has also shown an increase in the number of positive results.

"Currently, the infections are mainly affecting the workforce, but clearly there is a risk the virus will spread to care home residents, or to other parts of the care sector. Unfortunately, in some care homes with recent outbreaks, this does appear to have occurred, with residents also becoming infected."

On Saturday, Sir Mark Walport, a former chief scientific adviser, warned that Britain is "on the edge of losing control" of coronavirus.

While Mr Miller's letter does not reveal whether any patients have died, it will lead to fears that the virus could spread widely among the most vulnerable patients again.

Almost 30,000 more care home residents in England and Wales died between March and June this year compared to the same period in 2019, the latest Office for National Statistics figures from July have shown, with two thirds of the deaths directly attributable to Covid-19 (see graphic below, showing excess deaths by location).

Ministers are keen to avoid similar numbers this winter after coming under heavy criticism for releasing patients into care homes earlier this year without them being tested for the virus. The letter urges all care home staff to be tested weekly.

It says testing is "vital to protecting residents and staff and is an important part of the national effort to tackle Covid-19. If we know where the virus is, we can take steps to prevent transmission."

But on Saturday, care home bosses said they were facing delays in getting test results back from the Government's testing programme.

The Care England chief executive, Professor Martin Green, said: "Testing is critical, but the bottom line is that the Government's testing regime is not working and not delivering the plans that the Prime Minister has set out."

Care providers told The Telegraph that homes in some areas were waiting a week to get test results, which bosses said was putting lives at risk.

Mark Adams, the chief executive officer of Community Integrated Care, a charity that runs 18 care homes, said the Government's testing programme "from beginning to end has been a shambles".

He added: "Having finally got back to weekly testing, it's now taking on average five to seven days to get the test results back. Many care operators are finding they're sending the next week's tests off before they've got the first week's test results back.

"Obviously, if you've got people who get infected at the beginning of the week, there's two or three days for it to develop before they start to infect others. You could then have up to four days when they're blindly wandering around doing their job and they don't know that they’re ill... and that’s where you’re putting lives at risk."

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: "Throughout our coronavirus response we have been doing everything we can to ensure all staff and residents in care homes are protected.

"We are testing all residents and staff. There is a high demand for tests and our laboratories continue to turn test results around as quickly as possible and we plan to rapidly expand it in the coming weeks as well as bringing in new technology to process tests faster."