Hundreds of hospital patients discharged to Kirklees care homes without Covid-19 tests

A Freedom of Information request made to Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Huddersfield Royal Infirmary and Calderdale Royal Hospital in Halifax, reveals just 88 patients were tested before being allowed to return to their care homes between March 1 and April 15.

It means 302 individuals – or more than three quarters of patients – were not tested on discharge during those 41 days.

However, some of that number will have been tested on admission or during their stay.

The Government and Public Health England brought in routine testing for such patients on April 15.

Of those patients who were tested, 23 were positive and 65 were negative. No tests were found to be inconclusive.

The news comes as infection rates in Kirklees continue to fall – despite an outbreak at a care home in the north of the borough, which triggered a slight increase.

Kirklees Council says the outbreak has been contained and poses very little risk to the general public.

Details of where the outbreak occurred have not been made public.

Kirklees is now no longer within the 10 highest areas for positive infection rates.

As far back as May senior figures on Kirklees Council were calling on the Government to halt the discharge into care homes of patients with positive Covid-19 “to restore public confidence in the sector and save lives”.

Councillor Mus Khan, who is the council’s Cabinet member for Health and Social Care, criticised the Government on its guidance to care homes, which she said had been “led by capacity issues rather than science” and “rapidly changed from week to week.”

She described the situation in Kirklees’ care homes as “dire” as not all care homes were able to shield or isolate people, or manage infections, in the same way.

And she warned that some families were in fear of placing their loved ones in care homes. Other people had been removed to be shielded at home.

That meant a number of care homes were holding “significant vacancies” due to families’ growing fears of Covid-19 infection.

Concerns about potential holes in the Government’s national programme to test and trace people that have come into contact with the coronavirus has prompted Kirklees Council to investigate setting up its own.

Council Leader Coun Shabir Pandor said local contact tracing “might prove to be effective and, if it is, we will look to implement our own system.”