Labour’s Lord Hain reveals care home staff and patients face 21 day wait for Covid-19 results

Patients and staff across Britain’s care homes are waiting weeks for Covid-19 test results and, in some cases, are not receiving results at all, peers in the House of Lords have claimed. 

Labour former minister Lord Peter Hain said patients discharged from hospital were among residents facing length delays at a care home where one of his close relatives.

Liberal Democrat health spokeswoman Baroness Brinton also said of care home organisations: ‘Many are not getting any results back, a big black hole.’

It comes amid growing outrage over the coronavirus outbreak in care homes which has killed more than 10,000 older people so far. Yesterday Sir Kier Starmer challenged Boris Johnson over the crisis and accused him of misleading MPs about government advice that called care home outbreaks unlikely. 

Lord Hain, speaking in the House of Lords, asked why care home patients and staff, including patients recently released from hospital, are waiting up to 21 days for Covid-19 test results

Earlier today former health secretary Jeremy Hunt condemned the failure to deploy coronavirus tests on patients discharged into care homes.

The former health secretary said an ‘over-focus’ on the risk of a flu pandemic meant the government had not thought about the need for wide-scale screening.

And he insisted checks on patients sent back to care homes was an obvious ‘thing that needed to happen’. 

Mr Hunt told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that it is ‘pretty clear now’ that community testing should not have been abandoned on March 12.

The former health secretary said: ‘I think it’s very important not to finger point at the individuals, and I think the Government is getting excellent scientific advice.

‘But actually, to ask why it is that Sage, the Government’s scientific advisory committee, didn’t model the South Korean test, track and trace approach that we are now adopting right at the beginning?

‘The Government was given two very extreme options, the sort of extreme lockdown we’re just coming out of, or kind of mitigated herd immunity. 

‘And that middle way, the South Korean route, wasn’t modelled.’

Speaking about care homes today, Baroness Brinton added:  ‘Those that do say 10 days is not unusual and that local resilience forums are not being allowed to get the results either – they cannot plan support.’ 

Office for National Statistics data showed yesterday that 8,315 people have died in care homes in England and Wales with coronavirus listed on their death certificate. But researchers at the London School of Economics suggest this is only around 41 per cent of the total, which could be more like 22,000

Lord Bethell claimed Lady Brinton ‘casts the situation unfairly’, adding: ‘There are undoubtedly cases where test results have taken longer and last weekend we had a laboratory let us down and we did have some delays last weekend.’

He went on to pay tribute to the team who turned around a ‘very difficult situation’ before insisting the majority of tests are returned within the Government’s target time.

Lord Hain later asked: ‘Why in an English care home, where a close relative of mine lives, do staff and patients – including astonishingly patients discharged from hospital – still have to wait up to 21 days for the results of their Covid-19 tests?’

Lord Bethell replied: ‘He gives powerful personal testimony, I can’t possibly argue with the details of his story.

‘But can I just reassure him that the data I have is the turnaround time for tests is in the vast majority of cases radically less than what he describes, and we’re on course for hitting the target of 48 hours for a very large number of tests and 24 hours for a lot of tests.’

Lord Bethell earlier said ‘it was not true’ that the Government’s list of priorities at the beginning of the crisis did not include care homes, telling peers: ‘In every epidemic, care homes are always a priority.

‘History has taught us that and we knew it from the beginning.’

Care homes have become the focus of the coronavirus pandemic, with the Westminster Government coming under pressure over its approach in controlling the virus.

Boris Johnson was on the rack over care homes on Tuesday following an explosive confrontation with Sir Keir Starmer over whether they had been abandoned to coronavirus.

The Labour leader accused the PM of misleading the House of Commons after he denied the Government had previously said the virus was unlikely to break out in care homes.

Almost 10,000 care home residents have now died of coronavirus, accounting for a quarter of all victims. 

He ambushed Mr Johnson at Prime Minister’s Questions by quoting official guidance that had been in place until March 12 – well after coronavirus had started being transmitted in the UK. 

Sir Keir said it showed the Government had been ‘too slow to protect people in care homes’.

Mr Johnson replied that ‘it wasn’t true’ to say the advice said that. He later refused to apologise and accused Sir Keir of quoting selectively from the guidance.

The Prime Minister admitted to MPs however, that the lockdown could not be lifted until the coronavirus crisis in care homes had been dealt with.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and Prime Minister Boris Johnson clashed in Parliament yesterday over the handling of coronavirus in care homes

In a section on face masks, Public Health England advice to the care sector said: ‘It remains very unlikely that people receiving care in a care home or the community will become infected.’ 

Responding to a private notice question today, Lord Bethell also told peers: ‘The provision of tests for care home staff and patients is a number one priority for the Department of Health and Social Care and we’re currently making 30,000 tests a day available through satellite, mobile and at-home channels.

‘We aim to have offered tests to all care home staff and residents specialising in the care of older people and those living with dementia by early June.’

Labour’s health and social care spokeswoman Baroness Wheeler said there was a ‘squabble’ between the department, Care Quality Commission and Public Health England over who is responsible for the “total and tragic chaos” in care homes, something Lord Bethell denied.

The minister said: ‘I completely acknowledge the threat of a second peak.

‘It focuses the mind and it’s very much a priority for the Government. But there is no squabble of the kind the baroness describes.”

Lord Bethell also paid tribute to the ‘many’ care homes with no infection which have ‘applied the correct disciplines and systems’, adding testing priority was for those with infection.