The culture in care homes is this exactly - pass it on to managers otherwise you get disciplined or a 'serious conversation'
“You talk to somebody and they will sometimes give you the names of their fellow cleaners or kitchen staff in a care home, but as soon as they start talking to each other they think, well we’d better talk to our manager, and the manager says oh no – you’d better not do this,” said Jones.
“And the fact is that in all of these care settings but also in the NHS, there is no culture for contact tracing. There’s also no culture of self-isolation".
In care homes there is a 'culture of self isolation' in the sense if you have sickness and diarrhoea. you're not allowed to work for two days. This is done without pay for most care workers and sickness pay doesn't kick in until after 4 days - changed temporarily during this crisis -. So staying at home and not getting paid means no money, also there's staff shortages so people feel obliged to keep coming in because the service will be short staffed and that will affect the care given to people they support. Finally, care home managers and staff are in a very tricky position and have the welfare of those they support uppermost in their minds but giving information to 'strangers' is very much frowned upon by care organisations. Tracing and care homes would be best done through CQC and the organisation as part of a wider requirement that would involve people getting tested in the first place and not waiting for symptoms - something they've said they'd do now -more regularly. Testing is the key and then tracing be then used as a follow up.
