'After Covid, nothing really fazes us anymore'

"It was a devastating time. It's bound to have a hangover."

Phil Lloyd is reflecting on events five years ago as the world went into lockdown and the impact it had on the care firm he works for.

"I wouldn't go as far [as] to say [it has led to] PTSD, but [it] certainly was a very bad time."

Mr Lloyd, operations director at NG Healthcare in Trentham, Stoke-on-Trent, said the Covid 19 pandemic's fifth anniversary this week has also been a moment to remember the residents who died.

Staff at care homes in Stoke-on-Trent and Worcester have been telling the BBC about their experiences during the pandemic.

It was on 23 March 2020 that Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the first lockdown in the UK in the work to control the spread of the then potentially deadly coronavirus.

There were 34 Covid-related deaths at NG Healthcare across the first two waves of coronavirus in 2020.

The site is a specialist dementia care facility, one of the biggest in the region, with some patients aged under 50.

"My father was a minister and one of the things that breaks my heart was that, during the height of Covid, we had people who came here with devout faith – for example to be given the last rites – and we weren't able to facilitate that," Mr Lloyd said.

"I think personally we let them down."

Staff, he says, are still feeling the impact of an extraordinarily tough five years, but they had also learned from the pandemic how to go into "protection mode" quickly, whenever it might be needed again.

Reflecting on the residents who died, he said: "We have their pictures on the wall and we will all take time to pay our private respects."

At the time the pandemic was declared, Victoria Key was in her first care job, at Fernhill House in Worcester, working as a laundry assistant, when hygiene became so much more critical in helping preserve life.

"It was a scary time, there was a lot of change, we didn't know what was going on," said Ms Key, who is now the home's hospitality manager.

"At the very beginning there was no testing, so it was just about trying to keep everything as clean as possible."

She added the home had been "really lucky" as they lost very few residents to Covid.

"Nothing really fazes us anymore, because whatever they can throw at us we will sort of roll with it," she said.

In 2020, Fernhill House became one of the first care homes in the Midlands to provide a specialist visitor room, enabling their residents to see relatives, albeit behind a glass screen.

In July, the screen made a reunion possible between Gaynor Smallman, who was being treated at the care home, and her husband Robert, who had returned to Worcestershire after flights were grounded in New Zealand, where he had been on holiday.

As a result, the couple had not seen each other for five months.

"When we saw each other, we both burst into tears. They gave us glasses of champagne," Mr Smallman recalled.

He made a visit on the pandemic's fifth anniversary, to thank staff at Fernhill House - sadly without his beloved wife, who died in 2023.

"The care was incredible and the staff still remember her here," Mr Smallman told the BBC.

"I was very blessed – she touched so many lives."

Care bosses say adaptations they had to make during that crucial time have improved general standards - but it's come at a huge cost.

There were well-documented national failings in delivering PPE, confusion over hospital-to-care-home discharges, and another critical issue that is ongoing and fundamental – financing the "true cost" of delivering care.

Mr Lloyd said he was aware of around a dozen care home closures in Stoke-on-Trent in the past year because delivering care had become unaffordable.

"In the last year alone, 800 care homes have closed down in the UK," he said.

"As an example of the pressure, our wage bill will go up by £600,000 a year due to the employer's National Insurance contributions and the minimum wage.

"The care home industry at this moment in time is sadly not getting the fees it requires or funding it requires to provide a level of care we all aspire to, particularly after Covid".

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said that the government had "inherited significant challenges facing social care" and had "taken immediate action" to address this.

Action, they said, had included "a £3.7bn funding boost, 7,800 new adaptations to help disabled people live safely and independently in their own homes, and we are also introducing the first ever Fair Pay Agreement for care professionals."

An Independent Commission has also started work on a National Care Service "to rebuild the sector so that it is fit for the future", they added.

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