The Harrogate district has a third of the 235 care homes in North Yorkshire, so government plans to make it compulsory for all care home staff to be vaccinated could have a significant impact locally. Tracey Holroyd, chair of care home group Warmest Welcome, which employs 230 staff and operates The Crest in Harrogate and Westfield House in Killinghall, writes about the issue and the wider challenges of running a care home in the pandemic.

There has been considerable debate recently about the issue of vaccinating staff in care homes. There are concerns some staff won’t agree to have the jab and consequently there could be staff shortages.

I’ve asked all the managers in our group and none of them say they are anticipating a problem as the take-up of the vaccine in our group has been good. We now establish that all new employees should be prepared to have the vaccine before we offer them a job as well.

I have colleagues in some geographical areas where staff of different ethnic backgrounds appear to be less happy about having the vaccine. For those homes it could be a big problem, as it’s already very difficult to recruit staff without making more barriers. But I don’t foresee it being a problem for us.

As far as I’m aware, only a couple of the 230 staff in our group don’t want it. One of them is terrified of injections. We’ve tried distracting her, promising her cake/alcohol but she nearly fainted when she saw the needle, so I don’t actually think that her refusal is anything to do with covid at all. The others are actively trying to become pregnant and so who can blame them? All the staff at Westfield in Killinghall are now vaccinated and happy to be so.

More to the point, why does this only apply to care home staff? Why doesn’t it also apply to NHS and domiciliary care staff? I don’t understand the logic behind this, if indeed there is any.

Recruitment problems

It’s already difficult to recruit in the care sector. The issue of vaccinations is not the problem; it’s a general lack of interest in people wanting to work in a care home. This is a national issue, rather than a local one, and if you want to recruit a qualified nurse it’s even harder

Another problem looming is that the Care Quality Commission, which regulates health and social care in England, is now due to release care home names and numbers of covid deaths.

The care home community is not happy about this — especially homes that put themselves forward as covid units, as their figures will naturally be very high. The numbers will also be higher for nursing homes than they are for residential homes, as their clients are much more poorly to start with, so are likely to have higher death rates.

The NHS is also asking us to encourage staff to take holidays now as they’re anticipating a spike in covid in September, which also makes me nervous, but we will see, I suppose it’s not guaranteed to happen. Being a care home operator in a global pandemic is exhausting and stressful!

A Killinghall nursing home has confirmed it suffered six covid-related deaths in the final fortnight of January.

Westfield House Nursing Home remained almost covid-free until the new fast-acting strain struck around Christmas.

The outbreak had a devastating impact on residents and staff, culminating in the recent spate of deaths.

Many other care homes have also been badly affected by covid in recent weeks.

Tracey Holroyd, chairman of Warmest Welcome, which owns Westfield House and eight other homes, including The Crest Care Home in Harrogate, said:

“We have had six deaths that appeared to be related to covid since January 17.

“We now have just one resident who has to finish the remainder of their isolation period, which ends tomorrow.

‘Currently we don’t have any residents who are ill — or more ill than one would expect given that they already require 24-hour nursing care.

“The staff are all now back to work with the exception of the last two, who will be returning to work on February 5.”

Ms Holroyd said all residents and staff at Westfield able to have covid inoculations had now done so.

But the recent outbreak of the virus has meant delaying jabs for some people.

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