Nursing homes to reduce waiting period to admit patients after Covid outbreaks

Nursing homes have been given permission to take in hospital patients within seven to ten days of the last case of Covid-19 being detected, rather than 28 days

New infection prevention and control guidance means that nursing homes now may not need to wait for an outbreak of Covid-19 to be declared over before they can reopen to new admissions

Nursing homes with Covid-19 outbreaks will be able to admit new patients faster to ease the trolley crisis in hospitals.

Around half of nursing homes had multiple residents testing positive with Covid-19 since the start of the year, and were unable to take in new residents until 28 days after their last Covid-19 case was detected.

This made it very difficult for hospitals to discharge older patients whose treatment had concluded, which is a contributory ...