Care home nurses were “completely unprepared” for the Covid-19 pandemic and still need mental support to recover, according to new research.

The report, ‘Care-home Nurses’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic: Managing ethical conundrums at personal cost: A qualitative study’, was led by the University of East Anglia in collaboration with researchers at the University of Leicester and was funded by the Burdett Trust for Nursing and the National Institute for Health Research.

Lead researcher Dr Diane Bunn, from UEA’s School of Health Sciences, said: “Our work shows that care home nurses were completely unprepared for the extraordinary situation they found themselves in during the Covid-19 pandemic, and that this has impacted their mental health and wellbeing.

“They had to manage a highly infectious new disease, associated with high mortality, in residents already living with complex clinical conditions.

“They did this alongside staff shortages, constantly changing and conflicting guidelines and with minimal external professional support.

“Health and social care staff are still very much in a recovery phase. They need time to recover from all that happened during the pandemic and many of them will need counselling and mental health support for some time.

“Supporting care home nurses to recover from the pandemic is essential to maintain a healthy, stable workforce.”

The research team carried out in-depth interviews with care home nurses about their experiences of the pandemic, across homes for older people in England and Scotland. They particularly focused on the nurses’ resilience and mental wellbeing.

The study highlights a range of strategies to help nurses accept and recover from their experiences, and suggestions for how to better-prepare for future pandemics. These include:

•    Bespoke mental health and wellbeing strategy for care home nurses in the current pandemic recovery period and ensuring that this is ongoing and adaptable for future pandemics and disasters
•    Wider professional and government recognition of the specialist skills required of care home nurses
•    Revisit guidance to better prepare for any future pandemics and disasters on care homes
•    Involvement of care home nurses in the development of disaster-response policies in care homes
•    Consistency of guidelines, and research-informed methods for effective communication of guidelines.