Covid Pandemic: Testing of Care Home Residents Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Emma Lewell-Buck
Main Page: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)Department Debates - View all Emma Lewell-Buck's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
Covid Pandemic: Testing of Care Home Residents
Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Helen Whately
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point out the extraordinary things that were done during the pandemic. I do not think that the Government should seek to take credit for that; so many people worked incredibly hard, whether in local authorities, social care or the NHS, or through their involvement in supply chains and the huge efforts to secure personal protective equipment when that was incredibly hard to get hold of across the world. I am glad that he draws attention to some of those things. He is absolutely right that, in the context of the public inquiry, we should reflect overall.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
In April 2020, now-disappeared Government guidance in relation to hospital discharges stated:
“Negative tests are not required prior to transfers/admissions into the care home.”
It was later reported that the Minister then leaned on Public Health England to alter its proposed advice to care homes from ensuring that those discharged from hospitals tested negative to not requiring any testing at all. Why, at every stage, were the Government content to send people to their deaths in our care homes?
Helen Whately
I do not recognise the hon. Lady’s account at all. If she looks back at one of the legal cases that has looked into this question, she may find more accurate information about some of the conversations that went on behind the scenes. I can assure her that, as she would expect, in my capacity as social care Minister, I fought the corner for people receiving care—both home care and in care homes—throughout the pandemic.