By Ben Kerrigan-
Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer has called for prime minister Boris Johnson to account for official figures showing 10,000 “unexplained” deaths in care homes last month
The new opposition leader made reference to 18,000 deaths in April- three times the average for the month, which attributed just 8,000 to coronavirus.
Sir Keir accused the British Prime Minister of misleading MPs on factual matters and called him back to the Commons to correct the record. He accused the British government of being too slow to protect people in care homes.
In a letter, he wrote: “At this time of national crisis, it is more important than ever that Government ministers are accurate in the information they give.
“Given this, I expect you to come to the House of Commons at the earliest opportunity to correct the record and to recognise that this was official Government guidance regarding care homes.”
Downing Street said the Labour leader had “inaccurately and selectively quoted from the Public Health England guidance and that was what the prime minister was referring to”.Sir Keir said that up until 12 March care homes were being told it was “very unlikely” anyone would become infected.
The prime minister said “it wasn’t true the advice said that”.
He admitted there “is much more to do but we are making progress” on reducing the pandemic in care homes, but claimed an “action plan” was causing a “substantial reduction” in the number of deaths.
Sir Keir suggested coronavirus had been seeded into care homes by hospitals, early on in the crisis.
Sir Keir Starmer Seeks To Hold Johnson to account over pandemic handling in care homes Image: PA
The Labour leader, quoting a cardiologist, said: “We discharged known, suspected and unknown cases into care homes which were unprepared with no formal warning that patients were infected, no testing available and no PPE to prevent transmission. We actively seeded this into the very population that as most vulnerable.“And we had a system of testing people going into care homes and that testing is now being ramped up,” he said
BBC Health Correspondent Nick Triggle plausibly points out in an article for the BBC that ”the absence of a testing network or the right stocks of personal protective equipment care homes have undoubtedly suffered.
The deaths being reported in care homes have also been a source of concern and confusion for a number of weeks.
Triggle goes on to provide an explanation for a large number of unaccounted deaths, providing a number of possible explanations for this.
”They could be coronavirus cases that have been under-reported – the lack of testing in care homes may mean doctors have missed the presence of the virus when they have filled in the death certificates.
They could be “indirect deaths” related to the fact that residents have been unable to get care for other conditions, such as heart disease”.
This latter point is crucial and is the subject of an Eye Of Media investigation. An open inquiry about these facts is important.