Care home provider under ‘pressure’ to accept hospital patients with Covid

When the full extent of deaths from coronavirus in care homes was revealed at the height of the pandemic, the Health Secretary Matt Hancock claimed there had been a “protective ring” placed around them.

Tonight, amid worrying signs that coronavirus cases are spreading to care homes, this programme can reveal that hospitals are again getting ready to rapidly discharge people with the virus into them.

One leading specialist has told us it could become “commonplace” in England this winter, despite the huge death toll the country has already experienced.

And we have seen a leaked contract from Greater Manchester’s Trafford Council – asking care homes to accept patients from hospitals who are Covid positive – as our correspondent Ciaran Jenkins now reports.