EXCLUSIVE: ITV News has obtained evidence that it was *always* the plan to discharge Covid-19 patients into care homes.

1,800 beds were block booked in care homes by the NHS and councils for that exact purpose.

...And they’re still being discharged. https://www.itv.com/news/2020-05-28/itv-news-reveals-plans-to-discharge-covid-19-patients-into-care-homes-nhs-coronavirus/

Homes take painstaking precautions to stop the virus spreading, including full PPE, constant cleaning and isolating residents on separate wards or floors.

But one care home manager told us she’s being used as a “covid cleansing unit” and she’s now refusing to take patients.

The government has always denied that there was any pressure to discharge patients into care homes - the PM said yesterday “it’s just not true”.

But today the Health Secretary told us that it was right to discharge some patients into homes as that’s the best place for them.

Of course despite the infection control, some homes believe discharged patients seeded Covid-19 into homes to begin with.

The beds were block booked before routine testing of patients was taking place.

Some homes were unaware of the covid status of discharged patients.

This data was not simple to obtain, but lurks in the minutes of some meetings CCGs held in March/April outlining their emergency response to the pandemic, like the table below.

Other CCGs provided us with the data on request. But some are yet to do so.

All of our figures relate to England.

The Scottish government has said 900 patients were discharged into homes there before routine testing was taking place.

We have so far been unable to obtain data for Wales or Northern Ireland.