Asked by: Desmond Swayne (Conservative - New Forest West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment her Department made of the potential risks of discontinuing routine covid-19 testing of hospital patients prior to their discharge to care homes before.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The public health advice is that now is an appropriate point to end routine asymptomatic discharge testing for COVID-19, and move to a risk-based approach. A reduction in the severity of illness associated with the omicron variant, coupled with a high uptake of the vaccine among residents during the autumn COVID-19 vaccination booster, continued provision of infection prevention and control guidance, and the upcoming increased eligibility for COVID-19 treatments, demonstrates a reduced level of risk from COVID-19 in adult social care settings. In addition, epidemiological studies, and consensus reports from the early phases of the pandemic, suggest that hospital discharge was not dominant in the ingress of COVID-19 into care home settings.
The UK Health Security Agency’s (UKHSA) guidance on safe discharge and management of individuals with symptoms of an acute respiratory infection remains in place, and this will be kept under regular review. National Health Service trusts will have local discretion to re-introduce discharge or other forms of testing where clinically appropriate, following a risk assessment involving local authority public health teams, UKHSA Health Protection Teams, and care providers, as necessary in the decision making.
Asked by: Desmond Swayne (Conservative - New Forest West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what her planned timetable is for informing schools of the arrangements for reimbursement of the increased contributions they are required to make for teachers pensions.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
On 11 March 2024, the department announced an additional £1.1 billion in the 2024/25 financial year to support schools with the increased Teachers’ Pension Scheme employer contribution rate.
The £1.1 billion will mean over £920 million for mainstream schools and over £135 million for high needs settings. Additional funding will also be provided to local authorities in respect of centrally employed teachers.
This additional funding will be distributed via the new teachers’ pension employer contribution grant (TPECG) 2024. Further details can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/teachers-pension-employer-contribution-grant-2024-for-schools-high-needs-settings-and-local-authorities-2024-to-2025. To help with planning, the department has published a ready reckoner for mainstream schools and academies to estimate what their TPECG 24 allocation for 2024/25 will be. The ready reckoner can be found here: https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.publishing.service.gov.uk%2Fmedia%2F65f2cf0eff117048966159fc%2FTPECG_2024-25_Calculator.ods&wdOrigin=BROWSELINK.
With the extra funding for pension contributions, overall school funding is rising by £2.9 billion in 2024/25 compared to 2023/24, which takes the total to £60.7 billion and the highest ever level in real terms per pupil.