Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State of Health and Social Care, what discussions he has had with suppliers of quarantine accommodation on environmental standards in that accommodation; and what plans he has to terminate contracts where rats have been found within that accommodation.

We work closely with the hospitality sector providing quarantine accommodation and continue to monitor the operation of the managed quarantine service. CTM is the Government’s hotel quarantine service supplier. To ensure all our managed quarantine hotels are safe environments, we have standard operating procedures (SOPs), testing and infection prevention control processes for staff and guests. Each hotel has dedicated Departmental on-site liaison officers who monitor compliance with the SOPs and report back compliance issues, breaches, opportunities to improve services and other matters including health and safety breaches.

In a particular case where a resident had observed a rodent, the guest was moved and subsequently an environmental health officer upon inspection gave the facility a five-star rating, which is the highest rating that can be achieved. While a single or exceptional instance of non-compliance does not automatically trigger a contract termination, but the Department’s contract management and commercial teams do monitor standards and performance and will terminate contracts where performance or standards remain below what is required. Contracts are designed to terminate in the event of sub-optimal performance.

We require hotels to ensure that rooms are cleaned and COVID-19 secure after a positive case. After a guest checks out the room is left for 24 hours prior to accessing it to ‘deep clean’. Strict protocols should be adhered to by all hotels by following the World Health Organization’s guidance on cleanliness.