- £600 million Infection Control Fund to reduce
transmission of coronavirus in care homes
- This forms part of wider support for care home residents
and staff, including by limiting staff movement, protecting
wages and giving access to NHS personal protective equipment
(PPE)
training
- Each care home in England to be given a named clinical
lead to provide direct care for residents
- A wellbeing package will be also launched on CARE
Workforce app to support the workforce with Hospice UK and
Samaritans
A new £600 million Infection Control Fund has been introduced
to tackle the spread of COVID-19 in care homes in addition to
£3.2 billion of financial support made available to local
authorities to support key public services since the start of
the crisis.
The fund, which is ringfenced for social care, will be given
to local authorities to ensure care homes can continue to
halt the spread of coronavirus by helping them cover the
costs of implementing measures to reduce transmission.
Care homes will be asked to restrict permanent and agency
staff to working in only one care home wherever possible. The
funding could be used to meet the additional costs of
restricting staff to work in one care home and pay the wages
of those self-isolating.
Care home support
package
Health and Social Care Secretary said:
This £600 million Infection Control Fund will help as we
continue to reduce infections in care homes and save lives.
From the very start of this outbreak, we have been working
to protect our brilliant social care workforce and the most
vulnerable in our society.
Our package sets out clearly the extra steps local councils
and care homes should be taking as we stamp out the spread
of this virus.
In further measures announced today:
- all local authorities must conduct a daily review of care
homes in their area to ensure care homes have the support
they need with staffing, help with
accessing PPE and
other areas of operation
- the NHS will ensure that each care home has a named
clinical contact to provide better access to clinical advice
through weekly check-ins to review their patients, and offer
direct support for staff with use of equipment and medication
- a wellbeing package for social care staff is also being
rolled out today on the new CARE app including 2 new
helplines, led by the Samaritans and Hospice UK. This will
help support care staff with their mental health and
wellbeing and support those who have experienced a traumatic
death as part of their work or help with anxiety and stress
Minister for Care said:
Our care homes, and those working tirelessly to look after
our loved ones are at the heart of our fight against this
invisible enemy, which is why we’re doing everything we can
to make sure the sector has all the support it needs to
stop the spread and save lives.
Our support package introduces stronger measures on
infection control and steps up clinical support to make
sure there is a clinical lead assigned to every care home
right across the country to offer advice and quicker
support. This is an important set of measures to support
care homes and their staff – to continue to do wonderful
work caring for people, even at this most difficult of
times.
Local Government Secretary Rt Hon MP said:
We have already provided councils with over £3.2 billion
during this pandemic so that they can respond to the
immediate pressures they are facing, including supporting
social care.
This new funding will be distributed to councils based on
the number of care home beds in their area and will be
passed on quickly to care providers. It will fund new
measures to reduce the transmission of coronavirus in care
homes, minimise infection, keep staff and residents safe
and, ultimately, save lives.
Wellbeing support
Samaritans, working with NHS England, have extended the use
of their helpline to all social care workers. Social care
staff will be able to speak to a trained Samaritans adviser
who will provide a non-judgmental listening ear, safe space
to offload and signposting to other services.
Hospice UK will also extend their bereavement and trauma
support hotline to people working in social care, with
specialist counsellors available to support staff who have
experienced trauma, stress or anxiety through their work.
Mental health and wellbeing guidance for the adult social
care workforce was recently published on the app to support
staff and employers through the outbreak.
Testing
All symptomatic and asymptomatic care home staff and
residents in England are already eligible for testing, and
testing is prioritised for care homes that look after the
over 65s. The new digital portal now enables care homes to
register for the delivery and collection of test kits
directly.
Workforce recruitment
Today’s announcement also aims to further boost the social
care workforce and work has begun to attract thousands more
people into social care over the next 3 months through the
new national social care recruitment campaign.
NHS support will see nurse returners being deployed to care
homes through the Bringing Back Staff programme, as well
providing infection control nurses to lead a ‘train the
trainers’ approach for care homes available to every area in
England. This includes advice about the recommended approach
to infection prevention control, PPE usage and
testing advice. This programme commenced at the beginning of
May with the offer available to every area in England.
Ruth Sutherland, Samaritans CEO, said:
We are so pleased that we can offer support to even more
key workers who are doing such critical work on the
frontline. Our volunteers are ready and waiting to provide
a non-judgemental listening ear and a safe space to
offload, at a time when we know so many are under huge
emotional strain.
All calls are completely confidential and answered by
trained volunteers who will talk for as long as people want
to, whilst also offering information about other sources of
support that could be helpful.
Paul Johnstone, Deputy SRO for PHE COVID-19 Response at
Public Health England (PHE), said:
We are delighted that the social care sector will get even
more support in the form of the Social Care Fund, based
on PHE research and
emerging evidence from the World Health Organization. We
are confident that these interventions will help to further
reduce the transmission of COVID-19 and keep our care home
residents and workers safe.
The excellent work carried out by Directors of Public
Health and PHE’s Health Protection
Teams has already made a huge difference to the local
response to COVID-19. We will continue working with NHS
England and DHSC to
provide advice and support to the sector.
Tracey Bleakley, CEO, Hospice UK said:
We welcome the commitment the government is making to
ensure that the care workforce is to benefit from
bereavement and trauma support. These dedicated, frontline
health professionals face very difficult situations dealing
with COVID-19 which can take a toll on their mental health
and wellbeing. This is why Hospice UK is so pleased to be
able to extend our services to those in social care.
- The scheme will cover frontline staff in England.
- As a result of this £600 million the devolved
administrations will receive £113 million through the Barnett
formula:
- the Scottish Government will receive £58 million
- the Welsh Government will receive £35 million
- the Northern Ireland Executive will receive £20
million
- The allocation shares for each council are calculated as
[Number of care home beds * Area Cost Adjustment] / England
sum of [Number of care home beds * Area Cost Adjustment]. The
Area Cost Adjustment reflects differences in wages and prices
in different councils.
- The funding will be paid in 2 equal instalments to local
authorities. We have allocated funding to local authorities
according to the number of care home beds in each area, with
an adjustment to reflect the costs of operating in each area.
- We will request that 75% of the initial funding received
is passed straight to care homes within the local authority’s
geographical area for use on infection control measures,
including to care homes with whom the local authority does
not have existing contracts. The second payment will be
contingent on the first being used for infection control. The
remaining 25% must also be used for infection control
measures, however local authorities are able to allocate
based on need. This may involve support for domiciliary care
workforce measures. To be eligible for support from the
grant, providers who do not already must complete the daily
care home Capacity Tracker.
- This approach ensures that the majority of funding
reaches the front line as quickly as possible, while ensuring
that local authorities have the flexibility to top up where
it is most needed.
Further details of the Samaritans
helpline are on its website.
Allocation table for
the infection control fund for adult social
care (PDF, 104
KB, 5 pages)
