The Chief Exec of the NHS has defended a decision which saw hospitals offload thousands of potentially Covid-19 infected patients into care homes at the start of the coronavirus crisis.
On 17 March, NHS England and NHS Improvement wrote to trusts telling them to “expand critical care capacity to the maximum” by freeing up beds - meaning many patients were sent to care homes.
Experts now fear that moving these patients, many of whom could have been carrying coronavirus without symptoms, could have seeded the virus in care homes, which struggled more than hospitals to access lifesaving PPE as the crisis continued.
On Friday, the Office for National Statistics said that almost 30,000 more care home residents in England and Wales died during