Asked by: James Naish (Labour - Rushcliffe)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department plans to take to monitor coronavirus levels in winter 2025-26.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) continues to monitor COVID-19 through a variety of indicators and surveillance systems. Positive and negative laboratory tests, primarily taken in secondary health care settings, are reported through laboratory surveillance systems, and a sample of these positive tests are sequenced to monitor COVID-19 variants.
In primary care, the Royal College of General Practitioners’ surveillance centre reports on the testing of those attending sentinel general practices with respiratory symptoms. In addition, selected National Health Service trusts report on the number of COVID-19 admissions, and all NHS trusts report on intensive care unit and high-dependency unit COVID-19 cases. Local health protection teams will report on outbreaks of respiratory viruses, including COVID-19, in settings such as care homes, schools, and places of detention.
These data are analysed and published by the UKHSA in weekly official statistics in the National Influenza and COVID-19 Surveillance Report, which summarises information from the disease surveillance systems that are used to monitor seasonal influenza, COVID-19, and other seasonal respiratory illnesses. Further information is available at the following link:
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to Government grants statistics 2020 to 2021, published on 31 March 2022, what assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of the Adult Social Care Omicron Support Fund.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
In recognition of the increased pressures on existing funding sources caused by the Omicron variant, the Government made available £60 million of additional funding for January 2022 through the Omicron Support Fund.
As this funding was made available in January 2022, it was not included in the Government grants statistics publication for 2020 to 2021. However, it was included in the publication for 2021 to 2022, which is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/government-grants-statistics-2021-to-2022.
This fund was unringfenced, meaning that local authorities could prioritise the use of their allocations based on local resource and need. Local authorities submitted spending reports as part of our monitoring, showing use of their funding on the key measures outlined in the grant conditions, which were confirmed as the appropriate activities at that time. No assessment has been made of the effectiveness of the Omicron Support Fund.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many care homes received transfers from NHS hospitals in April 2020; and how many of those patients were tested for Covid before transfer.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
The information requested is not held centrally.
Asked by: Lord Beamish (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to remove the requirement for care homes to recommend residents undergo PCR testing where more than two covid-19 cases inside a care setting have been confirmed.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
The Government’s guidance on outbreak testing, where more than two COVID-19 cases inside a care setting have been confirmed, is informed by public health advice. This aims to ensure that positive cases of COVID-19 can be identified and to prevent transmission. We continue to keep this guidance under review.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Reform UK - Romford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to support care homes dealing with covid-19 outbreaks over the winter 2022-23 period.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
In the event of a suspected outbreak, the Government’s guidance states that the care home should inform the local health protection team or other relevant partner to provide advice and support on the clinical situation. Testing should be undertaken to prevent further transmission and the guidance offers flexibility on further temporary measures which may be taken to manage the outbreak, subject to a risk assessment. We are working with local partners and the care sector to ensure the guidance can be deployed proportionately during the winter.
Asked by: Baroness Debbonaire (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department plans to take steps to end the requirement for staff working in care homes to wear face masks.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
At present, adult social care guidance continues to recommend that all care home staff and visitors wear masks to provide protection for residents from COVID-19. The guidance allows for masks to not be used if, as part of a risk assessment, they are considered particularly challenging for the resident. We continue to keep this under review. Further personal protective equipment may also be recommended to carry out specific tasks.
The Department continues to work with the UK Health Security Agency to review relevant guidance to ensure it reflects the latest available evidence and safe and proportionate infection prevention and control principles.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what advice he received from the Government's Chief Medical Officer and Chief Scientific Adviser on the risk of covid-19 infections as a result of transferring patients from hospitals to care homes in March 2020.
Answered by Gillian Keegan
This information is not held in the format requested.
During the pandemic, Ministers received scientific and clinical advice from a variety of sources, in addition to advice from the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser (CSA) Sir Patrick Vallance and the Chief Medical Officer (CMO), Professor Sir Chris Whitty. This included advice informed by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), jointly chaired by the CSA and CMO. SAGE is comprised of scientific experts from a range of disciplines and considered the following evidence which informed this policy:
The ‘SPI-M-O: Consensus view on behavioural and social interventions, 16 March 2020’ is available at the following link:
The minutes of the ‘Sixteenth SAGE meeting on Wuhan Coronavirus (Covid-19), 16th March 2020’ is available at the following link:
Imperial College London’s ‘Report 9 - Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand’ is available at the following link:
Asked by: Emma Lewell (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 14 June 2022 to Question 1680 on Care Homes: Coronavirus, if she will publish figures on respite care home capacity from March 2020 to the present.
Answered by Gillian Keegan
The information requested is not held centrally.
Asked by: Emma Lewell (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an estimate of the number of (a) respite care homes, (b) care homes and (c) nursing homes limiting their patient capacity due to covid-19 restrictions in the latest period for which information is available.
Answered by Gillian Keegan
The information requested is not held centrally. Updated guidance for the sector was published on 31 March 2022 to ensure there are sufficient protections for care recipients while safely removing restrictions as far as possible.
Asked by: Emma Lewell (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the impact of ongoing covid-19 restrictions for care settings on (a) respite care home capacity and (b) patients and carers requiring respite care.
Answered by Gillian Keegan
No specific assessment has been made. However, we continue to monitor the delivery of the ‘Living with COVID-19’ plan. Updated guidance for the sector was published on 31 March 2022 to ensure there are sufficient protections for care recipients while safely removing restrictions as far as possible. We are investing up to £25 million to identify and test a range of new and existing interventions to support unpaid carers, which could include respite and breaks.