Exclusive: Hospital with sudden rise in coronavirus deaths failed to test all new emergency patients

A hospital where there was a sudden rise in Covid-19 deaths in the autumn failed to test all new emergency patients on admission, the Telegraph can disclose.

Tameside hospital in Greater Manchester admitted Jean Hale, 79, as an emergency patient in June and put her on a ward with Covid-19 sufferers without swabbing her first.

By that point in the pandemic, NHS hospitals had been instructed to give coronavirus tests to all “non-elective” patients that required an overnight stay.

Tameside and Glossop Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust accounted for a third of the 52 Covid-19 deaths in England’s hospitals in the week to 10 September. It reported 18 deaths at the hospital, up from six a week earlier.

Meanwhile, Telegraph analysis this week found that at least 100 of its 453 coronavirus patients since the start of August (equivalent to 22 per cent) caught the disease whilst they were in hospital.

Sources have blamed the high number of deaths at the hospital on high rates of Covid-19 infections, as well as demographic factors, and have insisted that the hospital has rigorous infection controls in place.

However, it seems not all the rules were followed.

In a letter sent in April, and signed by the national medical director, Stephen Powis, he told NHS staff: “To further support the effective management of Covid-19 in healthcare settings, we are therefore now asking you to expand testing to all non-elective patients admitted into your organisations that require a bed overnight. This includes patients who are asymptomatic.”

Further guidance issued in June stated that hospitals must test “all patients at emergency admission, whether or not they have symptoms”.

Nonetheless, Mrs Hale spent five days in hospital without being tested for coronavirus, her daughter Tracy Hale claims.

She was given a bed on Ward 42, alongside coronavirus patients, and was discharged when staff telephoned Tracy to warn her that Jean was in danger of catching the disease.

Mrs Hale returned to hospital later the same day, at which point she tested positive for Covid. She subsequently died.

She is not the only person whose treatment by the hospital appears to have been problematic.

Another patient, who has asked not to be named, went to the hospital in August because she was suffering from pelvic pains. She waited in A&E for three hours without being tested for the coronavirus, and was then told that she would only be treated if she waited with people who were reporting Covid-19 symptoms for around four hours.

The woman in question decided to go home rather than risk exposure.

Now, The Telegraph disclose that former patients have also voiced concerns about the way some staff at the hospital treated those in their care.

One nurse allegedly asked a room full of people struggling to breath because of the virus, “How does it feel knowing you’re going to die." 

Craig Farley-Jones, 44, from Hyde – one of the patients being treated on the ward at the time – said: “It’ll never leave my head. I was fuming.

“This nurse came in and she was only young, I don’t think she meant it the way she said it, but she said, ‘how does it feel knowing you’re going to die?’

"And she aimed it at all of us because none of us could breathe. I can’t believe she said that.”

Dr Brendan Ryan, chief medical director for Tameside, said: “The safety of our patients is of the utmost importance and our staff worked hard throughout the pandemic to follow infection prevention guidance set out by PHE, and we are currently looking into the care of Mrs Hale, with cooperation from her daughter, to understand where lessons could be learned.

“Mr Farley Jones did not raise any concerns with his care during or after his stay.”

A spokesman said: “Covid cases in our local community have been some of the highest in the country, which, as independent analysis has repeatedly shown, means cases will rise among patients and staff too. In addition our local community is older and more likely to suffer from pre-existing health conditions.”

He added that the hospital has rigourous infection control measures in place.

Read more: The Telegraph reveals serious concerns over coronavirus deaths at Tameside Hospital 

Read more: Exclusive: More than 10,000 patients caught Covid-19 while being treated in hospital