Health
West Wales care homes on “war footing” because of Covid crisis
CARE HOMES in West Wales are on a “war footing” because of desperate staff shortages caused by the skyrocketing Covid infection rate.
According to Mario Kreft MBE, the chair of Care Forum Wales, the sector is facing its worst ever crisis with reports that 75 percent of staff were off work in some homes, either because they had contracted Coronavirus or they were self-isolating.
The situation is so bad that as a last resort homes were introducing “firebreaks” to temporarily restrict visiting as the highly infectious Omicron variant tore across Wales.
Domiciliary care companies were also struggling badly and were often unable to provide the usual level of care.
Mr Kreft warned that the situation was only going to get worse before things got better.
So much so, that some care homes were likely to be forced to declare an NHS-style “critical incident” because they were unable to cope.
But he feared reinforcements might not be available because statutory organisations like local health boards and councils were also short of staff.
Mr Kreft said: “The scale of the challenge is one we have never faced before. It’s really, really tough out there.
“The First Minister reminded us in 2020 that the social care sector was in a fragile state before the pandemic because of its precarious finances and the shortage of staff.
“After two year of this, the pressures have been building up and now we’re facing a completely different challenge because the Omicron strain of Covid is so prevalent and so transmissible.
“As a result, we’re seeing problems we’ve not encountered before.
“Care Forum Wales members have been reporting being down by up to 75 per cent in terms of staffing shifts. We’re on a war footing.
“The social care workforce has been heroic right through this pandemic. It’s taken a pandemic for people to realise how essential these workers are – just in the same way as the NHS and other services.
“They are rising to the challenge but it’s incredibly difficult and it’s probably going to get much worse before it gets better.
“It’s quite possible that some care homes will have to call on the statutory services. There are plans in place and we have been working with Welsh Government and our colleagues in health boards and local government.
“We may have to declare what the NHS would call a critical incident and in that case the only place you can go is the statutory agencies.
“The trouble is that we all know they are suffering like everybody else at the moment so whether there would be people available to alleviate the crisis, I don’t know.
“What we are talking about is making sure that people are as comfortable and as safe as they can be.
“This also applies to our domiciliary care workers who are facing similar challenges, so the visits to people’s homes may not be as long or as often as they might have been until we get through this.
“Nobody understands the importance of care home visiting better than those that run and work in care homes. It’s essential to people’s wellbeing and we’ve had decades of open house visiting without any appointments.
“The last two years have been incredibly challenging and I think people need to understand that safe visiting currently also requires a staffing input which makes it even more difficult if you are short of staff and don’t have the capacity to ensure safe visiting.
“I don’t think there have been any situations where people haven’t been allowed to visit for people in very extreme circumstances.
“I think what we’ll see is firebreaks or temporary pauses in terms of visiting individual care homes.
“The responsibility is clearly with the registered manager and the organisation running each setting.
“All the registered providers have legal responsibilities towards their residents and they also have responsibility for the health and safety of their own staff.
“I think what we’ll see – and we’re starting to see it already – is that visiting will be restricted for a period of days or a week or so because quite simply there will not be the staff to ensure safe visiting.
“The other added complication is that care homes are now unable to secure insurance against Covid-related claims so they really cannot afford to take any risks.
“But as soon as we ensure safe visiting again, we will revert to that. That’s what people have been doing over Christmas and New Year. All I would ask from people is understanding because it is such a difficult time.”
in the same vein, Glyn Williams, director of a Holyhead care home, told ITV Wales that better PPE could be a potential solution to transmission in homes: “We could increase the PPE measures, we could increase the level of masks that we’re all wearing, from the flimsy FSMS to FFP3, perhaps that would cut down transmission.”
Care staff currently wear standard surgical masks in homes where aerosol-generating procedures are not present.
Back in September, Labour’s Health Minister, Baroness Morgan, was told by the Welsh Conservatives that her statement on PPE did not reflect healthcare worker experience.
It came after Dr David Bailey, Chairman of the British Medical Association Cymru, told the Western Mail on 15 September that one of the reasons NHS Wales is currently under such immense pressure is “inadequate personal protection equipment”.
Dr Bailey continued: “Some doubly vaccinated healthcare workers are still having to isolate due to treating vulnerable patients and not having sufficient equipment such as higher-grade respiratory masks to stop the spread of the virus.”
Commenting, Welsh Conservative and Shadow Social Services Minister Gareth Davies MS said: “If we have care bosses saying we must choose between lockdown and better PPE, then I have no doubt everyone would choose the Labour Government providing adequate equipment to hard-working care staff rather than closing down and damaging all of society and the economy once again.
“It is sadly not the first instance where the Labour Government in Cardiff Bay have been told that current PPE supplies were not enough: a survey of doctors in May 2020 found that 67% of doctors in Wales did not feel fully protected from Covid-19 in the workplace.
“Since then, only last summer, we had the British Medical Association say that one of the reasons NHS Wales has recently experienced such immense pressure is inadequate PPE, yet we gave supplies away to other countries rather than save up to look after our own.
“We are regularly told by the Labour Government that they are handling the pandemic well, but surely, nearly two years since coronavirus struck the UK, adequate PPE should not be an issue for service providers, but an integrated part of the supply chain and a matter of course.”
Two-thirds predict family sizes will shrink even further by 2040
NEW figures released by Fertility Family reveal that parts of Wales have seen some of the steepest declines in fertility rates across the UK, with the Isle of Anglesey recording a drop of more than 44% over the past 15 years.
The Beyond the Birth Rate report combines official birth statistics with survey data to explore why fewer people are choosing to have children – and why they’re waiting longer when they do.
Wales’ top ten fertility declines
The study identified the ten Welsh areas most affected by declining birth rates. The Isle of Anglesey tops the list with a fall of 44.21%, followed by Wrexham, Caerphilly and Merthyr Tydfil – all of which have seen declines of more than 27%.
| Rank | Area | Fertility rate decline |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Isle of Anglesey | -44.21% |
| 2 | Wrexham | -31.01% |
| 3 | Caerphilly | -27.74% |
| 4 | Merthyr Tydfil | -27.53% |
| 5 | Powys | -26.17% |
| 6 | Conwy | -25.45% |
| 7 | Pembrokeshire | -24.46% |
| 8 | Denbighshire | -24.35% |
| 9 | Cardiff | -23.54% |
| 10 | Blaenau Gwent | -23.18% |
Newport recorded the smallest decline in Wales, with a drop of just 8.6%.
How does the rest of the UK compare?
London has mirrored Wales’ dramatic decline, with boroughs such as Southwark also showing a 44.21% drop in fertility rates. However, some parts of England have been less affected.
Colchester has seen the smallest national drop, at just -3.95%, while other areas such as Runnymede (-5.19%), Lancaster (-6.04%), and Gravesham (-7.07%) have remained relatively stable.
Financial pressure tops list of reasons
The report suggests that the primary driver behind shrinking family sizes is economic hardship.
- 40% of people said financial stability was the key reason for delaying children.
- 23% described starting a family as simply unaffordable.
- 60% of respondents believe this financial strain is a major factor behind the rising age of first-time mothers.
Why are people waiting longer?
In addition to economic challenges, lifestyle and societal shifts are also playing a major role:
- 47% cited career ambitions and workplace pressures.
- 44% blamed difficulties in finding the right partner.
- 34% pointed to the housing crisis and lack of affordable homes.
These factors are leading to more people having children later in life – a decision which often reduces fertility and the total number of children they may have.
Smaller families likely the future
Over the past 15 years, the UK’s overall fertility rate has declined by 26.9%. That means for every two women of childbearing age, one fewer child is being born.
Looking ahead, 67% of people surveyed expect family sizes to shrink even further in the next 10 to 20 years.
The study also revealed:
- 40.7% believe more single parents will have children independently.
- 20.5% expect an increase in adoption and surrogacy.
- 14.9% foresee co-parenting arrangements becoming more common.
- A striking 47% said they believe more people will choose not to have children at all.
With both economic and social factors contributing to the trend, the report paints a clear picture: the traditional family model in the UK is evolving – and quickly.
THE NUMBER of Welsh NHS patients waiting more than two years for treatment has fallen by 26%, according to data released by the Welsh Government on Thursday, April 17.
However, waiting times for ambulances have increased, while A&E performance continues to be under severe pressure.
The latest NHS statistics for Wales revealed that the NHS treatment waiting list remains at 793,946 pathways.
Two-year waits are 15,005 in Wales, compared with only 161 in England. The Labour Health Minister, now First Minister, Eluned Morgan, promised to eliminate these waits by March 2023 and again by March 2024 but failed to meet these targets. The target remains a long way off from being met.
The Welsh Government’s Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, Jeremy Miles, said: “I am very happy to see a significant fall in the longest waits and the overall size of the waiting list falling for the third month in a row.
“This shows what can be achieved when health boards focus on delivering services, including faster treatment and increased NHS capacity, by embracing new ways of working.
“Those efforts have been supported by our £50m additional investment.
“We still have more work to do to reach our ambitious targets, but it is encouraging to see waiting times consistently falling.
“Two-year waits have fallen to their lowest levels since June 2021 and were more than 26% lower compared to the previous month.”
However, the NHS in England has already eliminated two-year waits. At the same time, a significant number of specialisms in Wales, including orthopaedic care, are excluded from the waiting time data.
Jeremy Miles continued: “The number of pathways waiting more than a year for their first outpatient appointment has fallen for a third consecutive month and is nearly 28% lower than the peak in August 2022.
“The number of patient pathways waiting 36 weeks and the average time waiting for treatment were both lower than the previous month.
“Performance improved against the 62-day cancer target in February, increasing to more than 60%, whilst 1,800 people started cancer treatment and 13,000 people were told the good news they did not have cancer.
“A significant improvement was achieved in March in reducing the total number of delayed hospital discharges, with a drop of 114 delays over the previous month. This was the lowest delay figure over the past year and the overall second lowest since reporting began two years ago.”
However, despite the Welsh Government blowing its own trumpet, performance still lags far behind the already poor performance of the Welsh NHS against targets preceding the Covid pandemic.
James Evans MS, Welsh Conservative Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, said: “Labour Ministers will try to claim success today, but these statistics are worse than a mixed bag.
“The reduction in two-year waits is welcome, but the fact that they still exist at all, when they haven’t for so many months in England, coupled with worsening ambulance response times, is a testament to Labour’s failure to meet their targets.
“The Welsh Conservatives want to see improvements across the board and we can only achieve that by removing restrictions to cross-border, cross-community and cross-sector capacity sharing and by, flnally, enacting a long-term workforce plan.”
A CALL to develop a group to look at a Pembrokeshire-wide policy on schools stocking potentially life-saving EpiPens has been deferred, awaiting the outcome of a Welsh Government scoping exercise.
The current Welsh Government position on emergency adrenaline auto-injectors, commonly known as EpiPens, is different from England, where it was mandatory for schools to hold a stock.
EpiPens are commonly used in the emergency treatment of Anaphylaxis, a severe allergic reaction that can be life-threatening.
Welsh Government guidance allows schools to obtain adrenaline auto-injectors (AAIs) without prescription for emergency use, with Pembrokeshire favouring a school-led decision rather than an authority-led one, replicating Welsh Government guidance.
A call to review the county policy was heard at the April meeting of Pembrokeshire County Council’s Schools and Learning Overview committee following a request from Independent Group leader Cllr Huw Murphy.
Cllr Murphy had said: “Ysgol Bro Ingli H&S Committee met on April 1 to review existing policies, one of which was the First Aid policy. The document provided is the Ysgol Bro Ingli First Aid Policy, which appears to be an adaptation of a generic PCC First Aid document sent to all PCC schools to adapt/implement as appropriate.
“It was highlighted at this meeting that the subject of ‘EpiPens’ was absent, and it appears that PCC may not have developed a county-wide policy on this subject to date, which I think needs scrutiny. At present the stocking of EpiPens is a matter for the Head of a School & Governing Body.
“As was the case when we as an O&S Committee moved to support the introduction of a mobile phone ban in schools, I think we as councillors should provide political leadership to also move to develop a county-wide policy on schools stocking EpiPens (possibly inhalers for asthmatics) and that PCC should fund this cost. It cannot be assumed every child with an allergy will always bring their EpiPen to school and furthermore this does not cover other potential severe allergic reactions eg bee stings.
“I was going to submit an NoM to council but with hindsight feel that the Schools O&S would be the appropriate forum for the matter to be given a thorough airing from where we can hopefully move a recommendation to council.”
Cllr Murphy’s call was backed by Cllr Micheal John, saying: “If there’s a chance of one person dying due to a lack of policy it’s something we have to consider,” moving for a working group to be established to obtain more data ahead of any formal decision.
Another supporter was Cllr Anji Tinley, herself an EpiPen user, compared the provision in schools with defibrillators, saying: “You don’t know you’re going to have a heart attack,” later adding: “£70 to save a life, I don’t think that’s a lot of money.”
Members heard a scoping exercise was currently taking place in Wales, with members agreeing to write to Welsh Government to for an update on its position ahead of any formal group being created.
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