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CARE HOME


ENVIRONMENT Editor Tim Probert


timprobert@stepcomms.com Business Manager


Michael Butcher


michaelbutcher@stepcomms.com Journal Administration


Katy Cockle katycockle@stepcomms.com


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Steven Dillon Publisher


Geoff King geoffking@stepcomms.com Publishing Director


Trevor Moon trevormoon@stepcomms.com


THE CARE HOME ENVIRONMENT is published monthly by Step Communications Ltd, Step House, North Farm Road, Tunbridge Wells, Kent TN2 3DR, UK.


Tel: +44 (0)1892 779999 Email: info@thecarehomeenvironment.com Web: www.thecarehomeenvironment.com


Tim Probert Editor timprobert@stepcomms.com


Covid response needed more joined-up thinking


Welcome to the February edition of The Care Home Environment. With the worst of the pandemic now surely behind us, evidence is mounting about just how hard Covid hit care homes. As detailed on page 9, two studies


published in the Lancet show how the prevalence and risk of mortality from Covid-19 in care homes was much higher than in the general population in England. Given the disproportionately high


death rates of care home residents from Covid-19, the data will be of little surprise. Yet it should be not be discounted or ignored because one of the key lessons to be learned from the pandemic is the treatment of the most vulnerable members of society.


When the history books about Covid-19 are written, they are likely to record that universal Covid restrictions failed to protect the truly vulnerable. This is a key theme of University of Edinburgh’s chair of infectious disease epidemiology Professor Mark Woolhouse’s new book, The Year the World Went Mad, in which he argues that the governments exacerbated the impact of Covid by opting for a blanket approach to lockdown. Instead of dusting off measures for


ISSN NO. 2398-3280


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Professor Mark Woolhouse STEP COMMUNICATIONS


an influenza pandemic that assumes everyone is vulnerable, he argues, the characteristics of Covid-19 meant governments should have had a more targeted approach to the elderly because the over-75s were 10,000 times more at risk than the under-15s. Woolhouse believes things may have been different if the Covid response


When the history books about Covid-19 are written, they are likely to record that universal Covid restrictions failed to protect the truly vulnerable


was less focused on protecting the NHS and more money had been spent on protecting the vulnerable, such as care home residents, and the staff who cared for them.


Instead, there was no requirement to test all patients being discharged from hospital into a care home until 15 April 2020, care homes often had their medical support from the NHS withdrawn, and PPE was frequently scarce.


One lesson to be learnt about Covid-19


is the need for more joined-up thinking. As the feature on page 21 about Tees, Esk and Wear Valley NHS Trust’s Care Home Wellbeing Service demonstrates, the NHS and care sector can achieve good things when working in partnership. One hopes it is the start of many such programmes. Enjoy the magazine.


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