pembsexile wrote: October 26th, 2022, 2:06 pm
It is very strange that the Welsh government has defended its decision to send Covid patients from hospitals into care homes at the start of the pandemic. This had catastrophic consequences. Earlier this year a High Court judge said that this decision was unlawful in England. That is probably why Mark Drakeford is resisting a call for a Wales specific enquiry into the handling of the Covid crisis. As a lawyer he can see the legal implications.
All this will come out in the wash.
Presumably, however to make any other decision required funding that was not made available.
My mother's experience was of being trapped in hospital, because she lived with my Dad in the care home, and while they had restricted abilities to care for themselves each could do bits and pieces that the other couldn't, and with the help of carers just about managed. However my dad passed while my mum was in hospital, and she became bed bound. Because circumstances had changed she spent 8 weeks waiting for a care package suitable for her to return to her care home. The hospital couldn't release her until it was in place, and the service providers had to wait, basically until another death to have the availability to provide the service that she required. Ultimately that didn't match as she had meals prepared and delivered for her, but no one to adjust the hospital bed for her to eat it. I live 40 miles away but did manage to get there to help her (on a rota) with my sister and brother. That was in purpose built accommodation, with wide corridors and doors for wheelchair access, a restaurant on site, lifts etc.
Quite how long someone in the same clinical condition but living on their own would have to wait in hospital for their house to be adapted before waiting for a care package is anyone's guess.
Even waiting for space in a care home is problematic, and it all leads to bedblocking.
The care homes tend to be private, and IMHO need now to be combined with the NHS so that the two can help each other to reduce the bed blocking which unfortunately leads to decisions made during a pandemic.
To learn from it, those decisions have to be seen alongside decisions made elsewhere to solve the same problem, otherwise the best results are not evaluated against the worst.