Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to increase the (a) efficiency and (b) availability of PCR covid-19 testing for care home employees and residents.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Regular testing is available for all staff, including agency staff, and residents in care homes.
Regular re-testing for all adult care homes has been available since 31 August 2020 through the care home registration portal. The regular re-testing regime in care homes requires staff to be tested once weekly using a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, with two additional weekly lateral flow device (LFD) tests and residents are tested every 28 days using a PCR test.
Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the funding support available to the care home sector for the long-term financial viability of that sector.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
As part of the 2020 Spending Review, the Government will provide councils with access to an additional £1 billion for social care next year. In addition, we expect to provide councils with estimated funding of around £3 billion to help manage the impact of COVID-19 across their services, including in adult social care and to compensate for income losses. This funding will support local authorities to maintain care services while keeping up with rising demand and recovering from the impact of COVID-19. Funding decisions on social care beyond 2021/22 will be decided at the next Spending Review. In the longer term, the Government is committed to sustainable improvement of the adult social care system and will bring forward proposals this year.
Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the ability and capacity of NHS Test and Trace to trace contacts in schools.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
No such assessment has been made. Contact tracing in schools is carried out by schools, rather than NHS Test and Trace.
Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many contacts the average NHS Test and Trace contact tracer makes per day.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
This information is currently not available in the format requested. During the period 31 December 2020 to 6 January 2021, an average of 11,749 contacts were completed every day by our contact tracers.
Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to promote social distancing in response to the outbreak of covid-19.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government has commissioned a marketing campaign to promote social distancing, including television adverts, posters and via the use of social media.
The Government has introduced three new measures:
- Requiring people to stay at home, except for very limited purposes;
- Closing certain businesses and venues; and
- Stopping all gatherings of more than two people in public.
Every person in the United Kingdom must comply with these new measures, which came into effect on Monday 23 March. The relevant authorities, including the police, have been given the powers to enforce them – including through fines and dispersing gatherings.
Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he will introduce covid-19 testing for front line NHS and emergency service workers when they show symptoms for covid-19.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
The United Kingdom has tested more people than almost any other major economy outside of China, South Korea, Germany and Italy.
We have boosted the number of labs undertaking testing while home testing and drive-through testing is also available in some areas.
We have increased the number of tests to 5,000 a day and it reached over 10,000 on 1 April.
Both key workers - such as health workers - and clinically high priority cases will be prioritised for testing.
Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when testing for covid-19 will be made available for members of the public who are not hospitalised.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
The United Kingdom has tested more people than almost any other major economy outside of China, South Korea, Germany and Italy.
We have boosted the number of labs undertaking testing while home testing and drive-through testing is also available in some areas.
We have increased the number of tests to 5,000 a day and it reached over 10,000 on 1 April.
Both key workers - such as health workers - and clinically high priority cases will be prioritised for testing.
Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to increase (a) the number of ventilators and (b) ICU capacity.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
It is the Government’s priority that the National Health Service has appropriate equipment to respond to COVID-19. This includes the provision of intensive care beds. The Department is working closely with NHS England and the devolved administrations to ensure this is achieved.
NHS England is actively assessing the critical care capacity of NHS organisations and the availability of additional facilities in the independent sector. It is working to ensure that hospitals have as much ventilation equipment as required and, crucially, the skilled and trained people to use it.
A new temporary hospital - the NHS Nightingale hospital – will open at the Excel Centre in London next week. It will have capacity for 4,000 people.
Two new temporary hospitals will be set up at Birmingham's NEC and the Manchester conference centre and will be ready next month.
NHS England has agreed a major deal with the nation’s independent hospitals. The deal – the first of its kind ever - includes the provision of 8,000 hospital beds across England and nearly 1,200 more ventilators.
We have been buying up ventilation equipment since the start of the crisis. NHS England expects soon to have just short of 12,000 ventilators available and we have asked the nation’s advanced manufacturers to join a national effort to produce more.
Information on critical care bed capacity is published by NHS England and can be found at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/critical-care-capacity/
Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps the Government will take to ensure babies and children of parents requiring intensive care treatment as a result of covid-19 are looked after.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
In many cases, other family members or friends of the parent(s) will provide temporary care. If there is no-one to look after the child, the local authority may need to take the child into temporary care.
Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure hospitalised users of (a) other languages and (b) British Sign Language have access to communication support.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
National Health Service providers working with their NHS commissioners should be taking steps to ensure hospitalised users receive access to interpreters in community languages and British Sign Language (BSL).
NHS England and NHS Improvement published guidance for Interpreting and Translation principles in primary care. This guidance is available for NHS providers and commissioners to help them in their roles providing hospitalised patients with communication support, whether that is community languages or BSL.
The guidance is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/primary-care/primary-care-commissioning/interpreting/