Barchester Healthcare chief blames delayed advice on coronavirus spread

The chief executive of Barchester Healthcare, Dr Pete Calveley, said around two thirds of his care homes had confirmed Covid-19 cases as he claimed advice was issued "too late."

Barchester Healthcare runs care homes in Darlington, Peterlee, Birtley, Northallerton, Sunderland and Gateshead.

This morning, Dr Calvely said: "We've had several weeks where their first reaction was to protect the NHS, where they wanted to discharge a lot of clients from hospital to make sure there was capacity for what they anticipated was a surge.

"And that meant a lot of people being discharged from care homes rather quickly who hadn't been tested and often we've seen where we've been doing large testing of care homes where asymptomatic staff, and particularly residents, are actually positive and therefore are freely moving through the home are infecting other residents and staff without anybody knowing about it until too late."

Dr Calveley said there was a "critical" period of up to four weeks before testing was available and advice was issued for staff to wear professional masks and isolation for new admissions.

"None of that advice came out until it was probably too late," he said.

It comes as the former Prine Minister Gordon Brown is said to be leading demands for coronavirus testing to be stepped up in care homes.

He said he was "shocked" by a survey by a group of care homes with a total of 700 residents and 100 staff that found just 56 percent of those staying there and 43 percent of workers had been tested for Covid-19.

Mr Brown said he was calling for the  Scottish and UK Governments to convene an urgent virtual summit to agree a joint plan to test, trace and isolate strategy to combat the spread of the disease.

The plea is being backed by trade unions including the GMB, Unison, Unite and Usdaw, as well as the Royal College of Nursing and a number of care home employers.