Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they made of the report by the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services Ensuring DASS and their partner decision makers have the critical and most up to date information and data on needs and capacity to plan for and make timely and rational decisions about the reprioritisation of services in response to a future flu pandemic and Identifying People who are Vulnerable in a Flu Pandemic Crisis, published in March 2018, which stated that (1) demand for personal protection equipment “could rapidly outstrip supply”, (2) advice on controlling cross infection will be required, and (3) they should “provide support with systems to collate data on suitable volunteers…as this was an area of weakness identified”, in the event of a pandemic; and what steps they took in response to that report.

The Government has made no specific assessment of the report by the Association of Directors of Adult Social Service’s (ADASS) report of 2018, but the Department engages and considers views of ADASS as a key partner organisation. Since the start of the pandemic we have worked closely with the adult social care sector and public health experts to provide guidance and support, including on controlling infection.

On 2 April we published Admission and Care of Residents in a Care Home during COVID-19, which was updated on 19 June. We set out our plans to support the care sector in using and accessing personal protective equipment (PPE) in Covid-19: Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) Plan on 10 April. On 15 April we published our COVID-19: Our Action Plan for Adult Social Care which included strengthened advice around isolation and introduced testing for all patients prior to discharge from hospital to a care home. Copies are attached. On 15 May, the Government announced a support package for care homes backed by a £600 million Infection Control Fund for care homes to tackle the spread of COVID-19.

To support the health and social care sectors to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have launched the National Health Service Volunteer Responders programme, developed by NHS England in partnership with the Royal Voluntary Service. It is up to individual social care providers to decide whether to use volunteers. We do not collect data nationally on how many volunteers are operating in the social care sector.