Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, for what reasons eligibility criteria for accessing covid-19 tests are different for care workers in (a) the community and (b) care homes.

Protecting care home residents and staff has been and continues to be one of our top priorities. We know that people receiving care are some of the most vulnerable people in our society.

Asymptomatic testing for domiciliary care workers (also known as home care workers) is guided by the results from the Public Health England (PHE) prevalence study into domiciliary care. This study found that COVID-19 prevalence among domiciliary care workers was similar to prevalence in the general population.

The eligibility criteria for accessing COVID-19 tests for care workers is based on advice from PHE, The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) and evidence from the Vivaldi study, which highlighted the importance of frequent testing for care home staff and residents.

We will continue to develop our testing strategy for adult social care, based on scientific advice on relative priorities and available testing capacity in order to limit the spread and save lives.