Asked by: Jerome Mayhew (Conservative - Broadland)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department has taken to help ensure the safety of (a) asylum seekers and (b) other members of the public while asylum seekers are housed in Badersfield during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
For those asylum seekers in hotel accommodation the hotel services procured ensure access to a single room and all essential needs including three meals a day that cater to individuals’ dietary requirements, supplementary beverages, fruit and personal hygiene products. Where service users are isolating food is placed outside of their rooms, otherwise it is served in communal dining rooms with staggered meal times and appropriate marking to delineate social distancing. Providers are applying controls to further support social distancing, such as tape markings, and providing translated public health guidance and instruction to service users. Full laundry facilities are also made available to all. This replicates the services provided in most initial accommodation facilitates, although rooms there are shared where service users are not self isolating.
In Dispersed Accommodation (and self catered initial accommodation), where the significant majority of our service users reside and consists of houses or homes of multiple occupancy accommodating small numbers, service users have been provided guidance to ensure they socially distance or self-isolate in line with the advice provided to the general public. Additionally, service providers have enhanced their contact management and wraparound services to ensure access to medical care, food packages and other essential items.