Coronavirus: Seven residents of east London care home die

Seven residents of an east London care home have died with coronavirus.

Another 21 residents are displaying Covid-19 symptoms at the Hawthorn Green home in Stepney - which houses 48 people.

A dozen staff members are also off work, either self-isolating or shielding, the care home said.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said it was "working around the clock to give the social care sector the support it needed".

A care home spokesman said: "Regrettably, seven residents have died who had symptoms consistent with Covid-19.

"Twenty-one residents are showing at least one symptom consistent with the virus."

Jamshad Ali, an 87-year-old retired tailor who moved to London from Bangladesh in 1962, is one of those who died.

Mr Ali, who had worked for Burberry, died in the Royal London Hospital on 24 March after contracting Covid-19, a week after being discharged from hospital for a chest infection.

His daughter Luthfa Hood told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: "If we had known the virus was so prevalent in Hawthorn Green we would not have sent him back there after he had been in hospital.

"We knew that if he got it, that would be him done.

"We cannot praise the NHS enough for what they did. But there needs to be more testing, especially in places like care homes where the most vulnerable live."

Labour MP for Barking and Dagenham Dame Margaret Hodge has written to the government about the shortage of PPE and staff at the care homes in her constituency.

"Care home staff said they were forced to wash or reuse disposable aprons and face masks. Some care homes had run out of gloves and face masks entirely", she said,

"I was shocked to hear that one care home had been forced to borrow protective eye equipment from a local secondary school.

"This situation is completely unacceptable and puts the health of care home staff and residents at serious risk."

A DHSC spokesman said: "We are providing personal protective equipment to over 26,000 care home providers across the country."