Mr. Mervyn Taylor:

Sage Advocacy is an external organisation. It works with individuals and families, sometimes where a person lacks capacity, or their representatives. We do not have an operational role in the nursing homes. The Deputy will appreciate that because of the restrictions, it was very difficult to get contact. We did nevertheless have a lot of contact with some relatives in some cases but also with staff. In many cases we were acting almost like a sounding board for some people who are under an awful lot of pressure in the nursing homes. One of the key issues was that there is a belief that the hospitals were suddenly emptied out all into nursing homes. I would like to see the data on the transfers from the acute hospitals to the nursing homes because I think they are mixed. That is my very strong impression. I know there were some nursing homes that took in people and other nursing homes that closed down, restricted visiting and said they would not take anybody from acute hospitals-----