Minutes:
In accordance with Council Procedure Rules, the following question was asked by Councillor L Brown.
In April this year, Durham County Council sent contract addendums to all care homes in County Durham.
The addendum was not seen by cabinet members or any other councillor before it was sent. The addendum forced care homes to either accept Covid or potentially Covid-positive patients from hospitals or not get the financial assistance being provided from government by the council.
This was, as confirmed in parliament, categorically not government policy.
County Durham has the highest death rate from care homes in the entire country. In addition, concerns are continually being raised about the refusal in County Durham by the powers that be to test professionals entering and travelling between care homes.
The public in County Durham must have answers to what happened and what is happening in our care homes - most importantly to make sure we do not see further unnecessary deaths.
Requests to scrutiny for a review have been ignored.
I therefore ask Cabinet: Please will you immediately commission a full, open and transparent review of what has and is happening in our care homes, involving all stakeholders, and including what the impact of the horrendous contract addendum was.
Councillor L Hovvels, Cabinet Portfolio Holder for Adult and Health Services thanked Councillor Brown for her question.
Before responding Councillor Hovvels expressed her sincere condolences to all those who had sadly lost loved ones as a result of the pandemic and placed on record her thanks to all staff working within social care and the NHS during this difficult and unprecedented period.
In March, the Government instructed local authorities including Durham County Council to support with the discharge of patients from hospital to make way for an anticipated surge in the number of admissions due to Covid-19.
Later that month, the Council wrote to care home providers asking for their support in accepting hospital discharges where they had capacity to do so. The Council’s approach was based on both government guidance and national advice shared with it by the Local Government Association, but was later revised following the publication of the Government’s Adult Social Care Action Plan on April 15.
Supporting care providers had been a key priority for the council.
The support the Council had provided working closely with colleagues in the NHS and other partners had included;
· Extensive financial support totalling over £30m which had been provided to cover additional costs, assist with cashflow and sustainability of services.
· Support with sourcing and provision of PPE, providing in excess of 1.3m pieces of PPE to care providers.
· Support with testing.
· Specialist advice and training on infection control.
· Support with additional staffing support. Through the County Durham Care Academy, the Council had recruited over 40 staff into posts with a further 90 being trained ready for employment.
· Council staff had been in often daily contact with providers to offer support and guidance.
· The Council had also been able to offer psychological support for care workers.
Sadly, between March and June this year, County Durham experienced around 66 deaths for every 1,000 care home beds. While it is unfortunately of little comfort, it was important to note that this rate was in line with many other local authorities across the country and was far from being the worst in the UK. It was also important to note that the County Durham had one of the largest numbers of care homes in the country, with over 5,000 beds in the county.
All our resources were, understandably, currently focused on managing the evolving situation in County Durham regarding the current, ongoing outbreak of coronavirus. It would not be right, therefore, to divert any of these essential resources away from the matter in hand in order to carry out an investigation at this time.
Councillor L Brown expressed concern that history may repeat itself and asked again that Cabinet commission a full, open and transparent review of what has and is happening in care homes.
Councillor Hovvels reiterated that it would not be right to divert any essential resources away from the matter in hand in order to carry out an investigation at this time.