The Times - UK (2020-12-03)

the times | Thursday December 3 2020 2GM 13

News

will help to ease the isolation felt by

many residents who have been without

company and physical touch for weeks.

Before this, relatives of care home

residents across Britain have only been

able to visit outside at a distance or

behind large plastic screens, which pre-

vents something as simple as holding

hands. Steve Winter, director of the

nursing centre, said that the sense of

“relief, enjoyment and compassion”

that came from seeing two family

members being able to spend unre-

stricted time together was “a joy to see”.

“This has been a huge step forward in

our desire to enable residents to have

visits from family members in a

meaningful way,” he said. “Knowing

Suicide after

business hit

A financial adviser drowned

himself in a river after the

lockdown ruined his business, an

inquest heard. Nick Gunnell, 55,

left a note for his family on June

30 expressing his regret and

apologising without saying what

he planned to do, John

Broadbridge, the assistant coroner,

said. Mr Gunnell, from York, had

been suffering from anxiety and

sleeping problems, he added. The

inquest heard that before the

pandemic, Mr Gunnell had been

preparing to sell his business and

was planning a tour of the Greek

islands with his wife. The

lockdown affected his business

and the deal fell through, while

travel restrictions meant the

holiday did not go ahead. Mr

Gunnell’s brother, Jez, said after

the inquest: “Nick Gunnell lived

life to the full and was an amazing

husband, father, stepfather,

brother, uncle and a great friend to

many. He is greatly missed by us

all and we are all aware that Nick

is a hidden victim of Covid-19.” A

post-mortem examination

concluded that Mr Gunnell

drowned. Mr Broadbridge

recorded a conclusion of suicide.

Healthy teenager’s death

A teenager with no known

underlying health conditions was

among 372 more patients to have

died in England after testing

positive for coronavirus, the NHS

said. The majority had known

underlying conditions but 17, aged

between 19 and 93, did not. The

deaths were recorded between

April 7 and December 1, and bring

the confirmed death toll in

hospitals in England to 41,310.

January circuit breaker

Britain may need a circuit breaker

lockdown in January or February

despite the introduction of Pfizer’s

coronavirus vaccine, Liam Smeeth,

a leading epidemiologist of the

London School of Hygiene and

Tropical Medicine, has said.

Although the progress on vaccines

was “fantastic news” for the

foreseeable future we would “need

to find ways to fairly happily live

alongside this virus”, he added.

Corbyn broke virus law

Piers Corbyn, brother of the

former Labour leader, was found

guilty of breaking coronavirus

laws during an anti-lockdown

protest in London in May. District

Judge Sam Goozee said at

Westminster magistrates court

that the arrest had been

“necessary and proportionate”.

Corbyn’s lawyer said it breached

his right to protest. Corbyn, 73,

was given an absolute discharge.

Zoom tops app table

Zoom, the video conferencing

service, was the most popular free

download from Apple’s app store

in the UK this year, followed by

the NHS Covid-19 app,

highlighting the impact of the

pandemic. Social networks and

chat apps such as Whatsapp and

Instagram also sit in the top ten,

with TikTok third. Driving Theory

Test and Official DVSA Theory

Test Kit were the top paid apps.

coronavirus in brief

News

KEVIN COOMBS/REUTERS

Serena as they are allowed physical contact for the first time since March at The Chiswick Nursing Centre in west London

sweet as any thanks to rapid test

that the visitors are tested and shown to

be Covid-negative, gives us the reassur-

ance that the risks to their family

member and to others who live and

work at the centre have been

minimised as far as possible, and means

that we can continue to provide those

opportunities for visits in the run-up to

Christmas and onwards.

“We are grateful to the public health

team at the London borough of

Hammersmith and Fulham who have

worked in partnership with us to make

this happen.”

Since the government announced

that testing will enable care home visits

across the country, the Relatives & Res-

idents Association, the charity that pro-

vides support for people in care and

their families, has been inundated with

calls from people unable to reunite with

loved ones.

Helen Wildbore, its director, said

there are concerns about the capacity

to test visitors and warned that some

families might not be able to see care

home residents before Christmas. “It is

going to take a long time for visiting to

be rolled out [at] all care homes —

many providers don’t have the capacity

for testing. As it has been throughout

the pandemic, the latest visiting gui-

dance has put the onus on providers to

implement [it], which means it won’t be

the same across the board,” she said.

Bob and Patricia Underhill embrace for the first time in months at a care home

KEVIN COOMBS/REUTERS

Doctors may have made blanket

decisions on “do not resuscitate orders”

without consulting patients or their

family members during the first wave of

the coronavirus, the care watchdog has

warned.

There were 40 complaints made to

the Care Quality Commission (CQC)

about the orders, up from nine in the

previous six months.

The CQC’s investigation found that

the “do not attempt cardiopulmonary

resuscitation” (DNACPR) orders may

have been used inappropriately when

care services were under extreme

pressure, owing to a misunderstanding

of the guidance on their use.

Between 15 and 20 per cent of those

who undergo the invasive resuscitation

procedure in hospital survive, with the

survival rate falling to between 5 and 10

per cent outside hospital settings. The

procedures can cause punctured lungs,

fractured ribs and severe bruising.

Failing to fully appraise a patient or

their relatives of their options is a

breach of their human rights, the CQC

warned. Decisions on DNACPRs must

never be dictated by blanket policies

and must not be made based on a

clinician’s “subjective view of a person’s

quality of life”.

The commission said that it had

received evidence from staff and family

members of patients that the orders

had been applied without consultation.

One carer said that an on-call doctor

had informed care home staff that if a

resident were to catch Covid-19, a

DNACPR order would automatically

be put in place. Another witness said

that some care homes and learning

disability services had been told by GPs

to place blanket orders on everyone in

their care.

Some family members of patients

said that they were not made aware

such an order was in place until their

relative was very unwell. Others said

that they had been told their loved one

had agreed to a DNACPR order, but

they had concerns over their under-

standing.

The CQC also found examples of

routine care not being provided in

homes because of the order.

Inappropriate DNACPR notices may

still be on people’s files, the CQC said. It

added that some errors could have

arisen by clinicians misinterpreting

guidance from the National Institute

for Health and Care Excellence on

March 20, which mentioned consider-

ing underlying health conditions when

assessing frailty and DNACPR orders.

Rosie Benneyworth, the chief

inspector of primary medical services

and integrated care at the CQC, said: “It

is unacceptable for clinical decisions —

decisions which could dictate whether

someone’s loved one gets the right care

when they need it most — to be applied

in a blanket approach to any group of

people.”

The CQC is now undertaking further

fieldwork to understand the extent to

which DNACPRs may have been mis-

used in the pandemic. The final report

is due to be published in February.

Such an approach

from doctors was

unacceptable, said

Rosie Benneyworth

Fears raise d

over ‘blanket’

orders not to

resuscitate

Arthi Nachiappan