Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans his Department has to increase the resources available to care homes to mitigate the pressures caused by the covid-19 outbreak.

We have now made £4.6 billion available to local authorities to address pressures on local services caused by the pandemic, including in adult social care. The Infection Control Fund, set up in May 2020, has been extended until March 2021. An extra £546 million has been provided to the care sector to take key steps to improve infection prevention and control. This includes restricting staff movement in care homes and paying the wages of staff who are isolating. We have provided over £1.1 billion of ring-fenced funding for infection control throughout the pandemic.

We have made an extra £149 million available through the Rapid Testing Fund to support the care sector to implement additional lateral flow device testing. On 16 January 2021, the Government announced an additional £120 million to help local authorities to boost staffing levels in the care sector.