Leaked email reveals delay 10 days after Matt Hancock said any resident with symptoms would be checked for coronavirus

The government is failing to test sick care home residents for coronavirus 10 days after Matt Hancock promised that anyone in residential care would be checked if symptomatic, a leaked email has revealed.

With a worsening crisis in care homes for the elderly, where thousands have died, the health secretary pledged on 14 April that all residents would be able to get a test, not just an initial five people in an outbreak at each home. He claimed again on Thursday that “anybody in a care home who has symptoms now gets tested”.

However, a leaked email from Public Health England (PHE) to a care provider said on Wednesday that “the processes to undertake this have still not been established”.

Asked why it could not test more care home residents, PHE initially said its policy was still only to test residents in an initial outbreak, despite the position of Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) being that all symptomatic residents should be tested.

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A PHE spokesman said: “If there is a brand new outbreak and a care home needs to establish if there is an outbreak, they contact their local public health team and the local health protection team will arrange testing and do a risk assessment for that care home. That is done at PHE labs or one of our partner labs in the NHS.

“If after there is an established outbreak they suspect there are more individuals who are symptomatic and may need testing, from a public health point of view, because we have already given advice on what to do, the public health advice doesn’t really change.

“So it isn’t really beneficial from a PHE point of view. So PHE wouldn’t then further test any people in that care home. But the DHSC is rolling out greater testing, so that’s when they get involved.”

However following that explanation, a PHE spokesperson later issued a statement saying all sick residents and staff will get tested as soon as possible: “PHE would like to apologise if our letter has caused confusion to the care home. All residents and staff will be tested and we will arrange this straight away.”

PHE’s earlier stance meant that care homes are having to rely on the DHSC’s commercial testing capacity at 28 drive-through sites across the UK, which are not appropriate for most care home residents to access.

There are also four mobile testing units for England and a small number of home testing kits being piloted, although Prof John Newton, who is coordinating testing efforts, said this would be scaled up to 50 in the coming week.

Peter Kyle, the Labour MP who obtained the leaked email, said a care home in his East Sussex constituency was refused tests for further residents beyond an initial outbreak of a handful of people.

“The outbreak in this care home has suddenly worsened with another five symptomatic patients who cannot be tested,” he said. “There are staff who are sick and staff who are refusing to come to work.

“A month ago, the prime minister promised that testing would be rolled out into care homes and personal protective equipment (PPE) would be there by the end of that week. Thousands of people have died since then.

“I’m convinced the loss of life in care homes could have been limited. They could have tested, got the right PPE, and stopped workers working between multiple homes. They put the NHS on battle stations but they left social care as business as usual … It has been criminal neglect.”

Care home providers have pleaded for more testing and warned that the pandemic is still spreading in their sites, after official figures showed more than 1,000 people were confirmed to to have died in care homes from the virus in the week to April 10.

Prof Martin Green, the chief executive of industry group Care England, said on Tuesday that the number of fatalities in care “could easily exceed what’s [happening] in hospitals”, where 17,337 people have already died. He has estimated that at least 7,500 people have died of Covid-19 in care homes.

A source at a major care home provider confirmed there are still widespread problems with residents getting tests but it had been promised by the government that this would be resolved.

A week ago, the government said 10,000 care home residents had been tested. That figure did not appear to have grown by Wednesday, when Helen Whately, the care minister, gave the same figure of 10,000 for how many care home residents had been tested.

Liz Kendall, the shadow care minister, said the problem extended beyond the issue of care home residents being tested to difficulties getting care staff tested as well.

“I’ve been sent reports of carers being asked to go from Norfolk to Sheffield, from Peterborough to Stansted, from Oxford to Twickenham and from Leicester to Beeston. And they are booked on to it by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) the next day – what good is that when they have families and may not have a car?

“Matt Hancock was very clear in the social care action plan that all residents should be tested if they have symptoms. It’s one thing testing the carers that the CQC is doing. My understanding was PHE was doing the testing of residents. It’s a good question for the secretary of state.”

The Department of Health and Social Care has been approached for comment.