‘We have gone above and beyond’: Jewish Care reacts to PM care home criticism
'We have gone above and beyond to ensure that we not only follow outlined procedures, but taken additional precautions,' the charity said
Jewish Care has reacted to the PM’s claim that “too many” care homes had not followed coronavirus procedures, saying it did “everything possible to prevent the spread of Covid-19” in its facilities.
The charity’s director of care services, Gaby Wills, said on Tuesday that Jewish Care went “above and beyond to ensure that we not only follow outlined procedures, but taken additional precautions, which had we not done, the impact of the virus could have been much worse.”
“We took the early decision to go into lockdown across our homes more than a week before the national lockdown,” she said, citing other measures adopted by the leading care provider during the pandemic, which included a screening process, increase in deep cleaning and investment in more than 1.4 million items of personal protective equipment.
“We have started to admit people from the community into our homes over the last three weeks, and will only admit a person subject to them testing negative for Covid-19,” she went on.
“Any new resident is also asked to isolate for the first two weeks of their stay, which will help us to continue to keep infection out of our homes,” she added.
The prime minister’s comment, made on Monday, drew anger in the sector.
But when challenged about Boris Johnson’s words, his spokesman told reporters that care homes “have done a brilliant job under very difficult circumstances”, according to the Press Association.
“The prime minister was pointing out that nobody knew what the correct procedures were because the extent of asymptomatic transmission was not known at the time,” he said.
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