Care Homes: Insurance Indemnity

Lord Laming Excerpts

Wednesday 19th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, in the year from March 2020, the number of patients has in fact increased from 457,000 to 458,000. The CQC is monitoring the situation extremely closely and its data from the insurance industry suggests that, although there has been some pressure on some companies, there have also been new entrants and the amount of support available to the social care sector is resilient.

[Lord Laming (CB) [V]]

The Minister has a very good understanding that many of the residents in residential care homes are unable, because of their condition, to comprehend the significance of the coronavirus. At this stage in their lives, when they are at their most vulnerable, many have felt that they have been abandoned and are now unloved. Can the Minister tell the House, if the insurance indemnity is not acceptable, what other possibilities are being considered by the Government so as to ensure that the awful experiences of some residents in the past year will never be repeated?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord speaks movingly of the plight of many people in care and I agree with his sentiment—it has been a very difficult year indeed—but we cannot blame the insurance industry for the pressures that have been put on residents. On the specific point about residents receiving visitors, which has, I think, been attributed to problems with insurance, I remind the noble Lord that 82.5% of care homes in England are now able to accommodate residents, compared with 40% at the beginning of March—a very large increase.