CARE homes in North Wales are on a “war footing” because of desperate staff shortages caused by skyrocketing Covid infection rates.

According to Mario Kreft MBE, the chair of Care Forum Wales, the sector is facing its worst ever crisis with reports that 75 per cent of staff were off work in some homes, either because they had contracted Coronavirus or they were self-isolating.

The situation is so bad that as a last resort some homes have introduced “fire-breaks” to temporarily restrict visiting in the face of the highly infectious Omicron variant.

Mr Kreft warns the situation is going to get worse before things get better.

Mr Kreft said: “The scale of the challenge is one we have never faced before. It’s really, really tough out there.

“After two years of this, the pressures have been building up and now we’re facing a completely different challenge because the Omicron strain of Covid is so prevalent and so transmissible.

“As a result, we’re seeing problems we’ve not encountered before.

“Care Forum Wales members have been reporting being down by up to 75 per cent in terms of staffing shifts. We’re on a war footing.

“The social care workforce has been heroic right through this pandemic. It’s taken a pandemic for people to realise how essential these workers are – just in the same way as the NHS and other services.

“They are rising to the challenge but it’s incredibly difficult and it’s probably going to get much worse before it gets better.

“It’s quite possible that some care homes will have to call on the statutory services. There are plans in place and we have been working with Welsh Government and our colleagues in health boards and local government.

“We may have to declare what the NHS would call a critical incident and in that case the only place you can go is the statutory agencies.

“The trouble is that we all know they are suffering like everybody else at the moment so whether there would be people available to alleviate the crisis, I don’t know."

He added that more care homes were likely to reduce visiting in an effort to keep residents safe.

He added: “I think what we’ll see – and we’re starting to see it already - is that visiting will be restricted for a period of days or a week or so because quite simply there will not be the staff to ensure safe visiting.

“But as soon as we and ensure safe visiting again, we will revert to that. That’s what people have been doing over Christmas and New Year.

"All I would ask from people is understanding because it is such a difficult time.”