Covid-free Sheffield care home tells how they argued with medics to stop resident being returned from hospital without Covid tests

Beechy Knoll Care Home in Richmond, which looks after around 40 residents, were praised by their local GP after losing none of their residents during the Covid-19 lockdown.

One of the managers of the Richmond Road home, Marina Glaves, says that while it has been a tough few months, the health and wellbeing of the people they look after is everything to them.

She said: “There is so much bad press about care homes and coronavirus, but we wanted people to see that at Beechy Knoll this is not the case.

“We are proud of what we have done and we are proud of the team. We did whatever it took to keep our residents safe.”

Marina said their success has been achieved by requiring staff who suspected they might have Covid-19 to stay away from work and employing no agency staff, meaning the chances of importing the virus into the home from outside are kept to a minimum.

“One of our residents Kitty is almost 104-year-old and if it came into Beechy Knoll it would kill her,” said Marina.

“I argued for six days with a hospital consultant who wanted to transfer a resident back here who hadn’t had a test.

“But it is me who is going to have to face relatives if something happens so the owners backed me up.”

However, almost as important as keeping coronavirus out of the home has been keeping life going inside it.

A moving set of photos shared with The Star show what life was like inside Beechy Knoll during the lockdown, showing residents dancing, celebrating birthdays, eating ice cream, going to the ‘pub’ and keeping in touch with loved ones.

Marina said: “We manage the staff but we don’t manage the residents. It is up to them what they do.

“Life has been a bit surreal for residents and staff but we have continued to love, to laugh and to experience new things.”

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