Latest editorial
Care home resident Vera Levick, 106, is comforted by staff before receiving an injection of the coronavirus vaccine at Andrew Cohen House in Birmingham
by Lamiat Sabin
Parliamentary Reporter
A PLAN to allow some hospital patients who had previously tested positive for Covid-19 to be discharged into care homes without a recent test was said today to have “potentially tragic consequences.”
New Department of Health and Social (DHSC) guidance states that some hospital patients, who had tested positive within 90 days and have no symptoms or exposure to the virus, can be discharged into care homes after a 14-day isolation period.
They can also be discharged into any care home without having to first enter and isolate in a “designated setting,” sites set up and approved for the safe discharge of Covid-positive patients.
With more people dying each year and many spending their final days in institutions, researchers argue that wider access to palliative care could offer a more humane and cost-effective alternative, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
