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More than a third of care home residents caught Covid-19 in early waves of pandemic
More than a third of care home residents and a quarter of care home staff in England showed evidence of infection with SARS-CoV-2 during the first two waves of the pandemic, according to a new study led by University College London (UCL).
The study, published in The Lancet Healthy
Longevity, looked at blood samples from 1,434 residents (with a median age of 87) and 3,288 staff (with a median age of 48) at 201 care homes across England between 11 June 2020 and 7 May 2021.
The researchers found that 34.6 per cent of residents and 26.1 per cent of staff tested positive for the nucleocapsid antibody, which indicates prior SARS-CoV-2 infection. This compares to 16 per cent for the general population over a similar period. The data did not include residents and staff who died of Covid-19, meaning the true prevalence would have been higher.
Lead author Dr Maria Krutikov of UCL
Institute of Health Informatics said: “Our study shows the prevalence of Covid-19 in care homes was much higher than in the general population in England up until May (2021). “In the period we looked at, before the
Delta variant became dominant in the UK, the proportion of care home residents with evidence of previous infection with SARS- CoV-2 was more than double that of the general population.”
The research is part of the ongoing Vivaldi study, launched in June 2020, to investigate
SARS-CoV-2 infections in care homes and inform strategies to protect residents. It is funded by the UK Department of Health and Social Care. In a related development, a separate Lancet study found the age-standardised mortality risk of care home residents was 17 times higher during the first wave of Covid than for people in private housing. The research carried out by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, University of Oxford and software company TPP analysed mortality records from the Office for National Statistics and data from the Care Quality Commission between 1 February to 31 August 2020. However, the risk of death from Covid for care home residents during the second wave (1 September 2020 - 31 March 2021) returned to the pre-pandemic level of a tenfold higher mortality risk compared to those in private housing.
Care home staff vacancy rate almost doubled in six months – CQC
Care home staff vacancies in England nearly doubled in the six months to the end of December 2021, according to Care Quality Commission (CQC) data. The rate increased steadily from six per cent in April to 11.5 per cent by the end of last year, the regulator said. In the final quarter of 2021, care home staff vacancies were highest in London - 12.5 per cent - and lowest in the north-east and Yorkshire at 9.5 per cent. The data is based on responses to the CQC
between April 1 to December 31, concerning 8,260 services – around 54 per cent of all residential adult social care services. In a related development, the CQC said its survey on the impact of lockdown measures on the wellbeing of people who use care services has a “stark message” on
the challenges faced by health and social care services in England.
Nearly three quarters of carers (73 per cent) said lockdown restrictions have had an impact on the mental health of the person they care for, while over half (56 per cent) of carers said lockdown restrictions have had an
impact on the dignity and independence of the person they care for. “The recent pressures on services, the emergence of the Omicron variant and the impact this is having on the availability of workforce – a workforce that CQC reported to be exhausted and depleted in our State of Care report in October, continue to impact on the availability and quality of care people receive,” said CQC chief inspector of adult social care Kate Terroni (pictured).
Sacked care home vaccine refusenik loses employment tribunal
A care home worker who was sacked for refusing to have a coronavirus vaccine has lost an employment tribunal in Leeds. Cheeryn Allette, who worked at Scarsdale
Grange nursing home in Sheffield, declined to be jabbed when the management at the family-owned establishment made vaccination mandatory prior to the statutory ‘no jab, no job’ rules.
Allette initially told her bosses she “didn’t trust” the vaccine after reading internet conspiracy theories, saying it was “unsafe” and that the government was “lying about its safety”. In a follow-up meeting, she said her
objection was that it was against her “Rastafarian beliefs” to take any form of “non- natural medication”. The employment tribunal ruled that Allette was fairly sacked for gross misconduct after finding no reasonable excuse for her refusal of a vaccine and decided her stance was due to an unsubstantiated belief in a conspiracy, rather than religious belief.
February 2022
www.thecarehomeenvironment.com 9
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