Almost 500 patients were sent from Nottingham hospitals into care homes without Covid-19 testing, new figures reveal.
In the early days of the crisis, the Government told hospitals to free up space by discharging as many people as possible into care homes.
Despite people with the illness being asymptomatic in the early stages, testing did not become compulsory prior to discharge until April 15.
The figures, released under the Freedom of Information Act, show 486 patients were discharged into care homes from Nottingham City Hospital and the QMC between March 1 and April 15.
The Government did not make testing before discharge into care homes mandatory until April 15, but the trust did carry out 103 tests in this period.
Of these, 21 people tested positive, with 14 tests inconclusive.
On March 17, the NHS wrote to trusts telling them to “expand critical care capacity to the maximum”, to ensure the NHS had the capacity it needed.
To achieve this, trusts including NUH were told to: “Urgently discharge all hospital inpatients who are medically fit to leave.”
This included patients who were then discharged into care homes.
An Office for National Statistics report produced last week estimated around 56 percent of care homes have had at least one positive case of Covid-19 since the outbreak began.
Last month, an independent Whitehall report found 25,000 people nationally had been sent into care homes without testing.
At the time, Jeremy Hunt, chairman of the Commons Health and Social Care Committee and a former health secretary, said “it seems extraordinary that no one appeared to consider the clinical risk to care homes despite widespread knowledge that the virus could be carried asymptomatically”.
A spokeswoman for the Department for Health and Social Care said: “Throughout the pandemic, our approach has been guided by the latest scientific advice, and it is because of the work we were doing to monitor outbreaks in care homes that they received advice on March 13, including actions to take around infection control and isolating residents or staff displaying symptoms.
“To help further reduce the spread of infection in care homes, from this week regular testing for staff and residents will start, beginning with homes for over 65s and those with dementia, before extending to all adult care homes.”
A spokeswoman for Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust said: "We have been following the national guidance on discharging patients, which has been updated as knowledge and understanding of the virus has grown. The latest related guidance was introduced on June 19.
"We continue to discharge those patients when they are medically fit and no longer need acute hospital care.
"Before the initial change in guidance to test patients prior to discharge (April 15), patients would have still been discharged if they were deemed medically fit.
"Once a patient is discharged from hospital it is the responsibility of the receiving care provider to follow the guidance on self-isolation for those patients who test positive, or test negative but are showing symptoms.
"Information on how long the patient has had symptoms must be provided as part of the discharge information to inform any community services that might be visiting and/or providing care, which will inform staff of what PPE should be used to care for the individual and for how long precautions should remain.
"Appropriate infection control measures to prevent transmission of infection, including single room dwelling or cohorting, will be continued outside hospital for a minimum of seven days after the onset of symptoms and also 48 hours with no fever. A residual cough may continue for some weeks.
"Negative samples are not required for discharge in accordance with June 19 guidance."
