Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps the Government is taking to ensure that there is adequate (a) provision of covid-19 testing facilities for (i) care homes and (ii) other social care settings and (b) co-ordination between local authorities and social care providers in preparation for the potential imposition of regional covid-19 lockdown restrictions.

Following the success of the whole home testing programme, we announced the next stages in our testing strategy on 3 July. This includes regular retesting for care homes and enhanced outbreak testing for care homes.

We will be expanding our retesting service to all care homes from 31 August 2020. This retesting service has been prioritised in care homes for older people and people with dementia, and we aim to reach all of these homes by 7 September 2020. We continue to issue over 50,000 tests a day to care homes across the country, with the majority of these in high priority outbreak areas.