Protective equipment being diverted from care homes to hospitals, say bosses

Care home industry leaders have alleged that orders of supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE) intended to protect staff and residents in social care settings are being requisitioned by the NHS for use in hospitals.

Chronic shortages of masks, gloves and goggles mean that care homes are increasingly reluctant to take in new residents, and that government targets to discharge older people from hospital are unlikely to be met.

The government had set a target to move 15,000 people from hospital beds to community settings, including care homes, by the end of last week to free up space on the wards for treating new patients with Covid-19.

But there are signs that even where care homes have empty beds, sufficient staff in place, and are able to accept new residents in theory, the lack of PPE supplies means they are reluctant to put staff and residents’ health at risk.

Although the government promised that each care home provider would receive at least 300 fluid-repellent face masks by last weekend, care homes have warned that this would represent only a few days’ supply, and would not affect shortages of googles and gloves.

Attempts to independently source PPE have, in some cases, been thwarted after care homes were told by suppliers that their orders had in effect been diverted to NHS hospitals.

Labour MP James Murray, a member of the Commons health and social care select committee, has written to the health secretary Matt Hancock to ask him to urgently review the government’s strategy for supplying PPE to care homes.

At a meeting of the committee last Thursday, Martin Green, the chief executive of Care England, which represents bigger care home chains, told MPs that wholesalers were prioritising supplying the NHS over care homes, even though ministers had asked them not to do so.

“Some of my members are having things they had ordered, sometimes before this crisis, ‘taken at the borders’ for the NHS. So we have got a situation where the normal areas of supply are not getting through,” Green told MPs.

“This morning I heard from one case where the provider got a letter from their normal supplier where they said they would not be supplying any more because it was all going to the NHS. Obviously the NHS has needs but so does social care.”

Nadra Ahmed, executive chair of the National Care Association, which represents smaller and medium-sized care homes, told the Guardian she had also been contacted by members saying they had been told by suppliers their order had been diverted to the NHS.

Murray, the MP for Ealing North, said his local authority, Ealing, had informed him that the PPE requirements for the 50 care homes in the borough amounted to 20,000 masks a week – 5,000 more than ministers had guaranteed. A fifth of those homes had already shut their doors to new admissions because of an outbreak of Covid-19.

Murray wrote: “I appreciate that there are enormous pressures on every aspect of the health and social care system, and those working in other parts of the system – not least NHS workers on the frontline in hospitals – desperately need PPE too. However, I am concerned that without the government coordinating a plan for care homes’ supply of PPE, the situation will not improve.”

Reports that hospital discharges were being delayed because of a dispute between care homes and ministers over a deal to pay care homes flat rate fees of £1,300 and £1,700 per person per week were played down by Ahmed. She said fees, while important, were a “secondary consideration” behind health risks.

She said: “Of course money is important but I have to say that the primary message I get from members contacting me me is if we discharge people into our care we need the PPE to do the job. We need the tools to care for them.”

The Department for Health and Social Care was contacted for comment.

Hancock, who is in isolation after testing positive for coronavirus, wrote an open letter of thanks to social care workers at the weekend in which he promised the government was committed to doing “whatever is needed” for social care and the NHS.