Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they have taken to ensure that all workers in community retirement settings are provided with adequate personal protection equipment and have access to COVID-19 testing.

We have made arrangements to help ensure that settings providing adult social care services can access personal protection equipment (PPE) where they have a clinical need, in line with published guidance. This includes community retirement settings that have care provision.

We have released millions of items of PPE to wholesalers for onward sale to the adult social care sector for providers to access if they cannot obtain PPE through their business as usual routes. We have also released of millions of items of PPE to Local Resilience Forums to help them respond to urgent local spikes in need across the adult social care sector and some other front-line services, where they are unable to access PPE through their business as usual and designated wholesaler routes. We have also mobilised a National Supply Disruption Response system to respond to emergency PPE requests, including for the adult social care sector if they cannot obtain PPE through other routes.

On access to COVID-19 testing, staff that are experiencing symptoms can be referred for testing by their employer, use the self-referral portal to order a home test kit or visit a regional testing site.