Brilliant investigation by @PaulBrandITV and team, digging around in CCG minutes & data.

NHS England & councils block-booked care home beds at the beginning of the pandemic — but the government has always denied this was its strategy. https://www.itv.com/news/2020-05-28/itv-news-reveals-plans-to-discharge-covid-19-patients-into-care-homes-nhs-coronavirus/

Remember: until mid-April, patients were not routinely tested for Covid before being discharged into care.

This is madness, and, as we’ve all been repeatedly told by PPE-less staff — is why the virus spread like wildfire.

You can argue that is, at best, grossly negligent, or worse than that, sacrificial and sinister.

Moving patients from hospital into care is always a problem. In normal times, a concerted intervention to get (well) patients placements would be welcomed. This is v much not that.

PS. I argue that it is the latter, and a national scandal. But I’d also argue that the government’s treatment of the care sector has been a national scandal for the past decade.

Because it is and has been.