COVID-19: Changing Goalposts

The Mrs is currently scrabbling to comply with new guidelines released by the Care Quality Commission.

Over two months into the outbreak, the CQC has now issued an edict that registered care home workers should be wearing PPE at all times. Masks and gowns at all times and face shields when doing close personal care. Just like I was saying weeks ago.

The wife is now scrabbling to get supplies of PPE through from head office. She doesn't order it directly.

Of course if someone in the care home now contracts COVID-19 in between the edict being released yesterday and when the PPE actually arrives for use, guess who gets it in the neck?

Considering it was obvious two weeks ago and more that PPE should be worn as a barrier between carers and their clients, it's been a bloody long time coming. But of course the Mrs couldn't pre-empt any decision and buy PPE beforehand. She can only buy it now it's been deemed necessary.

Strangely it's only registered care homes. Other forms of care like supported living that work in exactly the same way are exempt from the PPE rules.

That's because they don't come under the CQC and any deaths are reported differently. They just get reported like deaths in the community.

Registered care homes count, (literally) because deaths are reported to the CQC and those statistics are collected by the ONS and are now starting to be reported on the news.

I can say quite cynically the deaths in registered care homes has shocked the government into action. Way too late.

It was quite obvious at the start of the COVID-19 outbreak that PPE should have been worn by carers as a barrier to them infecting care home residents and also a barrier to them being infected, as well as cross-infection between ill and healthy residents.

If it was good enough for hospital wards, it's good enough for care homes.

I hope the CQC will be taken to task on this.

I also hope it will show why the social care sector really needs to be classed as the same status as the NHS, if not absorbed into it.

COVID-19: Integrated Response Required.

It's quite clear there is still a disconnection between demand for PPE and supplies.

The fiasco of the RAF plane waiting in Turkey to be loaded. Turkey! Fucking Turkey!

Where's the PPE being made in the UK?

The rumour is there are warehouses of the stuff here in the country, but it's not being procured by the NHS. They prefer other means of supply.

Like acquiring shit quality Chinese products that don't work, or burning fuel and spending money on putting up RAF personnel while they wait in fucking Turkey for PPE to be loaded.

There's a guy in Portsmouth working in a shed producing face shields for local health providers. He's making 50 shields a day. IN HIS FUCKING SHED!

Now surely it's not beyond someone in government to set up a company in the first instance to co-ordinate supply to the NHS and to commend it if necessary to acquire premises and equipment to manufacture those supplies?

An N95 mask is not a hard thing to produce. Not with 3d-printing technology.

The face frame gets 3d-printed out of polyurethane, then the material gets laser cut and glued to the mask frame with polyurethane adhesive. It's not fucking hard.

But of course the beaurocracy kicks in. Are those masks certified? Is the supplier a trusted/recognised NHS supplier?

Look, the masks can be certified/tested whatever in quick style if you talk to the right people.

And fuck whether the supplier is on the NHS list: It will be a fucking government funded company so I hope to God NHS procurement managers don't ignore it because I'd be naming and shaming those fucking jobsworths.

As you can tell I'm a bit fucked off about the PPE situation and how ludicrous it is. Especially when the solution appears so simple.

In my previous life I was an installation manger. I know how these things are done. I also know how easily the situation is gamed to make it hard. Time to end the bullshit and crack on.

COVID-19: Care Sector Catastrophe Inevitable

First lets say well done to Boris for beating the Virus, glad he's through it and out the other side. Hopefully the secondary attacks from the virus won't do any harm.

I say secondary attack because in my personal experience of the virus, it seems to wane and then come back. In my case it was three times. The third time was the worst with breathlessness, chest pains and heart palpitations.

Not a nice experience, but a lot less than those people that got taken into intensive care have experienced.

Anyway, lets explore the care sector. Yesterday in the Government briefing, it was admitted that 13% of registered care homes are reported to be infected with COVID-19. That's a bloody high level given that care homes should be isolated from the population.

My Mrs is a care manager for a large charity and is currently having daily meetings with management regarding their COVID-19 response. The main focus on those meeting is PPE and guidelines around when to wear it.

Of course PPE is in short supply, although the charity does hold an amount in readiness for when a home becomes infected. This to me is arse-about-face: the emphasis should be isolation of those homes.

My personal opinion is that carers should be wearing PPE now in order to prevent bringing the virus into the home and protect the residents. There should be a barrier between carers and those being cared for. It should have been in place from day one. NOT waiting for the virus to be passed from an asymptomatic carer to residents. By then it's too late: residents who in the main have underlying health conditions will die.

As the saying goes, prevention is better than cure.

The care sector needs to get PPE in care homes and be wearing it NOW. Not only registered care homes but also supported living, domiciliary care and ANY form of community care. ALL carers should be wearing PPE as a matter of routine.

So far the government has failed to give clear guidance on this and has failed to supply PPE to the whole care sector. It seems only council-run care homes are getting PPE deliveries. The independent care homes run by private organisations and charities have been left very much out in the cold.

That has to change and change quickly to prevent avoidable deaths.