Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policy on covid-19 restrictions for care homes of the findings in the Statistical data set COVID-19: number of outbreaks in care homes – management information published on gov.uk on 28 May 2020 that 38 percent of care homes had cases of covid-19 between 20 March and 7 May 2020.

In the face of an unprecedented global pandemic, since the start of this pandemic we have been working closely with the sector and public health experts to put in place guidance and support for adult social care.

We keep our policies under continuous review based on the emerging international and domestic evidence.

In February, the first guidance for the sector was published; in March, we announced £1.6 billion funding for local government and £1.3 billion to go to the National Health Service and social care for discharge support; in April we announced a further £1.6 billion for local government and our detailed Adult Social Care Action Plan.