Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he is putting in place to ensure that residential care homes do not experience a shortage of (a) covid-19 tests and (b) personal protective equipment in the event of a second wave of covid-19 infections.

The Adult Social Care Winter Plan outlines the Government’s commitment to provide free personal protective equipment for COVID-19 needs for adult social care until March 2021. The plan also provides advice and guidance on our testing strategy for adult social care.

We are issuing more than 100,000 tests a day to care homes across the country. As part of the drive to towards the target of a 500,000-a-day testing United Kingdom capacity by the end of October, the Government has announced the addition of new Lighthouse laboratories in Newport and Charnwood to the national lab network, and work is ongoing on plans to expand the UK’s laboratory capacity even further over the coming months. The recent £500 million investment will increase testing capacity and rollout new cutting-edge testing technology to deliver rapid tests.