- Over a quarter of a billion has been given to extend adult
social care COVID-19 support beyond June
- Funds will boost Infection Control Fund and vital COVID-19
testing
- It brings the total specific funding for the sector to over
£2 billion
People in care homes or those being cared for at home will
benefit from an extra £250 million to continue to protect them
from COVID-19 transmission.
Made up of £142.5 million Infection Control Funding and £108.8
million for testing, the fund will help protect people in adult
social care by continuing to meet the cost of rigorous infection
prevention and control measures, as restrictions in wider society
are eased, and supporting rapid, regular testing of staff to
prevent COVID-19 transmission.
This funding brings the total funding given specifically to
social care to £2 billion throughout the pandemic to help support
the sector and keep people safe. This is on top of prioritising
the sector for vaccines, providing regular, rapid testing to care
homes and bringing in regulations to make vaccines a condition of
deployment in care homes.
Minister for Care, said:
“We are keeping up our support for social care through the
pandemic. This new funding will help care services continue to
protect those they look after and their staff from this cruel
virus.
It brings our total support to social care to £2 billion during
the pandemic, along with billions of items of free PPE, over 120
million tests and the prioritisation of social care in the
vaccination programme.”
The new money will be a continuation of Infection Control and
Testing Fund, which was due to run until the end of the month
and will now last until the end of September.
Infection Control Funding is used by care homes and home care
providers to keep their staff and residents safe. It can be used
to:
- ensure staff who are isolating receive their normal wages
while doing so
- ensure that members of staff work in only one care home where
possible
- limit or cohort staff to individual groups of residents or
floors/wings, for example paying for extra staff cover to provide
the necessary level of care and support to residents
- support recruitment of additional staff (and volunteers) if
they’re needed to enable staff to work in only one care home
Professor Martin Green OBE, Chief Executive, Care
England.
“The extension of the ICF and Testing Fund is very welcome and we
applaud the DHSC in securing this extension. The adult social
care provider sector has worked extremely hard to continue to
protect the people it supports and cares for through extensive
infection control and testing procedures. This funding is a
recognition of these efforts.
“Care England is happy to work at speed to ensure the successful
roll out of the money to the front line where it is most needed
and where providers have been anxiously waiting for news.”
Testing funding will continue to support providers with the costs
associated with ongoing testing in care settings. This includes
funding to support visitor testing to ensure residents can see
their loved ones as safely as possible.
Throughout the pandemic the government has sought to protect
everyone working in the social care sector or receiving social
care, particularly given the increased risk people in these
settings face.
Free PPE is provided to the care sector until March 2022 and to
date, more than 35 million PCR swab test kits and 85 million LFDs
have been sent to care homes.
Over £2 billion has now been given to the sector including
infection prevention and control measures and prioritised the
sector for the vaccine.
