Hospitalised Covid-19 patients moved into Calderdale nursing home

The NHS Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) revealed Covid-19 patients, some of which coming from Huddersfield Royal Infirmary, are to be accommodated at the Retreat Nursing Home, in Greetland.

It was revealed this week around two-thirds of care homes run by Britain’s largest operator, HC-One, have cases of coronavirus.

A spokesman from Calderdale Retreat, which is monitored by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), said: "It's important patients don’t spend more time in hospital than they need to and so when it's clinically safe to do so, they should be discharged.

"This helps to ensure we have enough capacity to support people who have acute healthcare needs in our hospitals as we continue to treat those seriously ill as a result of Covid-19."

To support this effort the CCG have been working with partners in hospitals, the Local Authority, the voluntary sector and the care sector to develop a revised Hospital Discharge Service.

The CCG said this includes establishing additional community bed capacity for those who do not need to be in hospital, but require additional care and support before returning home.

Calderdale Retreat, with its modern purpose-built facilities was identified by the CCG as an ideal partner to deliver these additional community beds as they accommodate an 18-bed service, which could be staffed and operated completely independently from existing care home residents.

"Staff at Calderdale Retreat who volunteered to support the work of the new intermediate care service have received full training, in line with national guidelines and have a supply of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), said the CCG spokesman.

"They're now assisting our experienced, qualified NHS nurses in the day-to-day running of the service along with support from the District Nurse Team, an enhanced GP service and QUEST - which is a nationally recognised dedicated nursing team for care homes in the community."

Sir David Behan, former chief executive of the CQC and now executive chairman of HC-One, said 232 care homes run by the firm have confirmed or suspected cases of Covid-19.

He said the figures are a “more realistic picture” of what is going on in care homes across the UK than official figures suggest.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) released figures on Tuesday showing 406 of the deaths involving Covid-19 in England and Wales that were registered up to April 3 had occurred outside of hospitals, including 217 in care homes.

There have been suggestions over the last week the true toll in care homes is actually much higher than that reported by the ONS.