Dementia patients 'difficult and complex' to transfer from hospital to care homes, says Telford NHS boss
Dementia patients are “difficult and complex” to transfer from hospital to care homes during the coronavirus pandemic because their “tendency to wander” risks cross-infecting other residents, a local NHS boss has said.
David Evans, the accountable officer for Telford and Wrekin CCG, said he and other executives were still examining how to handle them during the required post-discharge two-week quarantine period.
He was briefing the borough’s health and wellbeing board about the organisation’s post-coronavirus “restoration and recovery” plan.
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Public health director Liz Noakes said Telford and Wrekin’s Covid-19 death rate in residential care was “just below the West Midlands average”, and praised homes’ proactive efforts to limit the spread of the virus.
“They have been on the front line from the beginning and the measures they have taken, such as closing to admissions and staffing measures, all those actions that they have taken right from the beginning must be applauded,” she said.
Ms Noakes added that the council had taken a proactive approach too, supporting homes with and without known coronavirus cases.
“We’re not out of the woods yet, but all those approaches are things that we need to keep up,” she said.
Second wave
Councillor Richard Overton, the deputy leader of Telford and Wrekin Council, said: “I’m just wondering, if there is a second wave – because, until we get a vaccine we don’t know what is going to happen – how we work with the care sector?”
He said some care homes have introduced dedicated isolation sections for residents who have just been discharged from hospital, to wait out the quarantine period with a reduced risk of infecting others.
Mr Evans said: “We have been working with care homes. For those that can, we have been looking at setting up separate wings so they could take patients back into those.
“One group of patients where it is slightly more complex and difficult – and we’ve got a paper coming back to chief executives tomorrow to look at this – are patients with dementia, who are prone to wandering.
“Because, even if you’ve got a separate wing in a care home, a patient with dementia may well wander out of that wing because they just don’t understand what they’re doing, and potentially cross-infect other patients.
“So we are still looking at dementia. We have made progress on other areas.”
Councillor Andy Burford, Telford & Wrekin’s cabinet member responsible for health and social care, said: “Beyond Covid, we’ve got to find a way of getting more NHS presence in care homes, so that we’re able to manage a population which has got more infirm, because we’re taking those who are really at the top end of needs.
“There needs to be an NHS presence in those homes and much better collaboration with the health service.”
David Evans said that, during the pandemic, a clinical lead had been appointed for each care home “to make sure there is strong clinical advice and input for care homes”.
He said this system could be built on later.
