TWENTY-SIX hospital patients who had tested positive for coronavirus were discharged into Hampshire County Council care homes at the peak of the pandemic.

A further 23 elderly patients who went untested were moved to council-run care homes between March 23 and April 16. In total, 56 patients were transferred to homes over this period. Of the 33 tested, 26 had a positive result, a Freedom of Information request has revealed.

Between March and May, 110 coronavirus-related deaths – those with any mention of COVID-19 on the death certificate – occurred across 16 council care homes, including Westholme in Winchester and Forest Court Nursing Home in Southampton.

The FOI figures do not include private care homes, only those council owned. But a report to the county’s Health and Adult Social Care select committee shows there were 2,299 deaths in all care home settings between February 28 and August 14. Of these, 469 deaths were COVID-19 related.

Graham Allen, director of adult health and care, reported around 800 “excess” deaths from all causes above the average number over the same period in the previous five years. In addition to confirmed cases, excess mortality captures Covid-19 deaths that were not correctly diagnosed and reported as well as deaths from other causes that are attributable to the pandemic.

The decision to allow patients who had tested positive along with untested patients to be discharged to homes to free up NHS beds has been described as “reckless” and an “appalling error” by MPs on the Public Accounts Committee.

Until mid-April, patients were not routinely tested for coronavirus before being discharged into a home and that is believed to be in part how the virus spread among vulnerable residents. The Government’s advice to hospitals prior to April 15 was negative tests were not necessary prior to transfer into care homes.

In mid-July Health Secretary Matt Hancock pledged to regularly test staff and residents in care homes to identify anyone with the virus and reduce transmission.

But in a presentation to HCC’s select committee two months later, Mr Allen said there had been “delays and challenges” in delivering the national strategy. While 83 per cent of care homes now had access to regular testing kits, “lab capacity remains the issue alongside the logistics of registering and undertaking routine testing.”

Cllr David Harrison, Lib-Dem opposition spokesman for adult health and care, said: “I think when the Government inquiry is completed they will realise it was a big mistake to clear the decks of NHS hospitals as that only encouraged the spread of the virus into care homes with the most vulnerable people of all. But we are dealing with an unparalleled event. Decisions taken with the best intentions – to save the NHS – can sometimes have the worst consequences.”

He added: “It is disappointing after all this time that nearly one in five care homes still don’t have access to regular testing for coronavirus as the second wave of the pandemic threatens.”

Hampshire County Council refused to breakdown COVID-19 related deaths by individual care homes, saying this could focus public attention on those identified and impact service delivery to vulnerable residents.

The county council’s 16 care homes include: Westholme in Winchester; Forest Court Nursing Home in Calmore; Hawthorne Court, Sarisbury; Bishops Waltham House; Fleming House Care Home, Eastleigh; Bickerley Green, Ringwood; Cranleigh Paddock, Lyndhurst; Copper Beeches and Willow Court, both in Andover; Oakridge House, Basingstoke and Solent Mead, Lymington.