Health and Social Care committee chairman comments on NAO report: Readying the NHS and adult social care in England for COVID-19

Jeremy Hunt, Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee, has issued the following comment relating to figures confirming discharges of hospital patients into care homes contained in the report into issued by the NAO on Friday 12 June. 

Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee said:

“The figures released by the NAO today confirm that 25,000 patients were discharged into care homes without being tested at the height of the epidemic. Whilst the impact of such discharges meant the NHS was never short of beds or ventilators it seems extraordinary that no one appeared to consider the clinical risk to care homes despite widespread knowledge that the virus could be carried asymptomatically. Places like Germany and Hong Kong took measures to protect their care homes that we did not over a critical four week period.”