A public health doctor writes to me on care homes. "Last week was the most embarrassing week in my career so far. We submitted more complaints from our team and from care homes than I think anyone has ever seen... (1)
"..We all essentially made a concerted effort to document the shambles it was so they would have no choice but to listen. It was unfathomable how pitifully they had planned their ‘100,000 tests’. It meant care homes had to just spend days on the phone on a wild goose chase...(2)
"...for tests that just didn’t exist. The reputational damage to the local teams has been really damning. Now we have the mandate but not the resources. We need time (we must extend the lockdown)... (3)
"...people (recruit people with experience not just well meaning volunteers reading off an algorithm) and resources like digital teams that can help to scale and link this up locally. We could do an amazing job. But we need those three things. The teams are on their knees..(4)
"..they're tired and demoralised. They’ve never been so busy and are now just facing angry care homes who think we have failed them. But we just haven’t had the mandate and we still don’t have the resources, in local Public Health England... (5)
"I'm not sure about local government as they’ve had money but we need more, I imagine, given the weight of burden on them..." (6)
