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 improve (a) guidance and (b) support for care providers to ensure that full occupational sick pay is paid to social care workers who are having to self-isolate due to the covid-19 outbreak.

‘COVID-19: our action plan for adult social care’, published in April, was clear that adult social care providers should pay staff who are self-isolating their normal wages. We reiterated this expectation in the ‘Adult social care: our COVID-19 winter plan 2020 to 2021’, when we also announced that we are providing an additional £546 million to extend the Infection Control Fund. The Infection Control Fund can be used to cover the costs of paying staff to self-isolate.

We are working with local government, stakeholders and care providers to ensure as many providers as possible are following our guidance. Officials in the Department are working directly with local areas on this, including by identifying and contacting those local areas and providers who are not yet paying staff to self-isolate.