Care operators are facing acute staffing shortages caused by Omicron with more than 90 declaring a “red” alert, which means staffing ratios have been breached.
Over 11,000 care home workers are off for Covid reasons, according to internal health system staffing data seen by the Guardian. One of the UK’s largest private operators, Barchester, is dealing with outbreaks in 105 of its 250 homes. It said that rules meaning homes with Covid cannot accept hospital discharges will cause backlogs in the already struggling NHS.
Across England, 9.4% of care home staff are off work, according to government live data, with close to 3% absent because of Covid. The figures, which may be an underestimate because of the festive break, are drawn from submissions by thousands of care providers.
The worst affected areas appear to be in the north-east, north-west and parts of London, where combined Covid and non-Covid absence rates ranged from 16% to 22%. Experts said care standards could suffer as absences rose and councils were braced to redeploy staff from services such as libraries to help backfill threadbare rotas.
“The spread of Omicron across the country will bring more care homes into outbreak, put huge pressure on the already compromised staff group and mean those who need care do not get it,” said Vic Rayner, chief executive of the National Care Forum. Many care operators said delays in getting PCR test results back were a key frustration, meaning workers who may not be infected were isolating longer than necessary.
At one Barchester home in Shrewsbury 17 staff are off and 22 residents have tested positive while at a home in east London 27 staff are off and 20 residents have tested positive. HC-One, the UK’s largest private care home provider, said 869 staff are off with Covid or awaiting results – close to 5% of the workforce.
However, the virus is not causing widespread serious illness and death among residents, with 10 fatalities involving Covid in recent weeks across the chain, according to Pete Calveley, chief executive of Barchester, who said many residents “have only minor or cold-like symptoms”.
But up to 15% of staff are off work at the chain’s worst affected homes and the struggle to find replacements has seen care agencies quoting £80 an hour for staff – quadruple the normal rate – and a new practice of “gazumping”, with homes losing already booked staff at the last minute to operators willing to pay more.
Mike Padgham, a care operator in Yorkshire, on Tuesday urged the health secretary, Sajid Javid, urgently to establish a “volunteer army” of retired nurses, doctors, and carers who could fill shifts.
In Wales, Mario Kreft, chair of Care Forum Wales, described the situation as “hugely serious”, with large groups of staff testing positive after the Christmas break. He said that in the worst cases operators have had three-quarters of their staff off. Eight staff at one of his homes in north Wales reported positive tests on Tuesday morning.
“It’s a war footing,” he said. “We are trying to get everyone to the frontline and it is very, very difficult. We are appealing for understanding.”
Stephen Chandler, president of the Association of Directors of Social Services, said councils were braced for calls for help from care operators and said “the care that people experience will be affected”. In his county, Oxfordshire, a call has gone out for help from volunteers who work in libraries and at heritage sites.
Sanjiv Joshi, who runs 14 care homes in south Wales, said in one home over Christmas there were only half the staff needed to cover shifts, meaning that new recruits going through training had to be hurried into frontline roles.
“We are 20% down [on staff],” he said. “I know of other providers who say they are 30% to 50% down. Our biggest worry is the infection rates are so high it’s not going to spare anyone. We need an effective lockdown or control measures so that we don’t let the infections spiral out of control.”
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said:
“Protecting care staff and people who use social care services continues to be a priority, especially as cases surge and Omicron spreads rapidly across the country.
“Throughout the pandemic, we have made almost £2.4bn in specific funding available for adult social care and this week we announced an extra £60m to keep people in care homes safe over January.’’