Coronavirus: Plan to have care workers sleep overnight in homes for a week at a time ‘not scuppered by unions’

Denise Walker of the GMB said that the planned trial, which would have seen staff sleeping in care homes for a week at a time, simply had too many unresolved details.

But she indicated that the union was not inherently opposed to the concept.

She was reacting to claims from Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots, which he had made on Facebook this week.

He had written the following late on Monday night: “Given care homes are in the frontline in the battle against Covid, I was pleased that a number of homes had organised staff to work and sleep at the care home for one week at a time.

“They would have a week off before returning for a further week twice over a six-week period. All staff and their families would be tested in advance.

“This would have massively reduced the chance of spread of Covid to homes and saved the lives of their residents.

“The homes involved have had to pull the plans because of trade union objection, in spite of the fact staff had volunteered to do it.”

He declared himself “stunned” given the extent of deaths of people living in care homes.

It is understood that a trial run of the arrangements had been scheduled to take place in two care homes belonging to the Four Seasons group in the South Eastern Health Trust area last week.

It would have reduced people going to-and-fro from the care homes, possibly bringing the virus into the homes or communicating it to those outside.

Ms Walker, the senior organiser for the GMB, said: “We didn’t actually scupper it. There had been no consultation, and we obviously had a lot of staff concerned about the arrangements – or lack of arrangements.”

She said that Unison and the Royal College of Nurses felt the same.

Among the principal concerns were where the overnight staff would sleep,

“There aren’t the number of spare bedrooms in any of those homes to cater for staff sleeping in for a week,” she told the News Letter.

“They were talking about temporary beds in communal areas. To us, that sounded very much like a dormitory-style, which wouldn’t be safe.

“All we’d said at the time was let’s sit down and talk through the detail – let’s consult on this, and see how this is going to work before we rush in to do anything.

“If you think about the age profile of the people working in the care home, a lot of them also have caring responsibilities outside of the workplace.

“That’s all it was – we asked for them to sit down and consult with us.”

Rita Devlin, RCN Northern Ireland Head of Professional Practice said: “The trade unions were recently consulted on proposals from the Department of Health regarding a care home pilot. However, the RCN, alongside other health trade unions, raised a number of concerns around the potential risks to the health and wellbeing of our members and concerns around lack of suitable and safe accommodation for staff.

“On consideration of trade union concerns, the Department of Health took the decision to stand the project down.

“The minister has now announced a range of measures for care homes, including prioritising training and terms and conditions for care home staff being standardised and improved. The Royal College of Nursing welcomes this and looks forward in being engaged in these discussions moving forward.”

Mr Poots’ claims were put to the Department of Health, but it did not respond.

According to figures from the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, deaths in care homes across Northern Ireland up to May 1 accounted for 45% of all coronavirus-linked deaths.

The most recent fully-detailed breakdown of Covid death figures still only go up to May 1.

They track the coronavirus care home deaths each week in April, showing they started at 23% of total weekly deaths, and grew as the month went on – and in the final week of April care home deaths accounted for 62% of all.

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