How priorities work

When Matt Hancock says the Government prioritised care homes, it's a semantic thing. They just weren't top priority.

The first 'priority' was ventilators and hospital beds that work with ventilators. And, if anyone dares to be honest, the Government assumed that few people from care homes would be moved to intensive care in hospital - too old, with too many 'underlying issues' for such drastic intervention, which has been shown to have only a 50% chance of success.

Then there came the prioritisation of tests. It was NHS hospitals first, with care homes limited to 5 tests per home, only when there'd been some doctor confirmation of covid-19 already, to see if it counted as "an outbreak". 

Now we're being told PPE is a priority in care homes. This morning Government minister George Eustice said there'd been special deliveries to 'local resilience forums'. 

This is what the Government said on 10th April: "As an initial step, social care providers across England received an emergency drop of 7 million items of PPE, so that every CQC registered care home and social care provider received at least 300 face masks to meet immediate needs.
Starting in the week beginning 6th April 2020, we have authorised the release of a further 34 million items of PPE across 38 local resilience forums (LRFs), including 8 million aprons, 4 million masks and 20 million pairs of gloves."

There are 38 Local Resilience Forums in England. There's around 250,000 nurses, nursing assistants, and other support staff in 'care homes with nursing' in England.