14.05.20
PM announces £600m for infection control in care homes
Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced an extra £600m for care homes during Prime Minister’s Question Time (PMQs) yesterday (May 13).
It came with specific reference to infection control in care homes, in response to claims from Leader of the opposition Keir Starmer that the Government had been “too slow to protect people in care homes”.
The announcement was then supported by Robert Jenrick who took to twitter to celebrate the new funding. He tweeted:
“Great news that the Prime Minister @BorisJohnson has announced another £600 million of funding for local councils - focused on adult social care. This takes our total new funding for councils in the response to #Covid19 to over £3.8 billion in two months.”
Responding to the announcement, Cllr Ian Hudspeth, Chairman of the Local Government Association’s Community Wellbeing Board, said:
“Social care is the frontline in the fight against coronavirus and we need to continue doing all we can to shield and protect our most elderly and vulnerable, for those in care homes and also those receiving care in their own homes.
“This extra funding for infection control in care homes is good news and will help councils’ public health teams in their efforts to reduce and prevent coronavirus outbreaks.
“In order to play their full part in defeating this disease, councils need extra help and information to understand where outbreaks more widely are happening and be able to act quickly to contain them. The Government needs to share this vital and up-to-date data with councils, as part of any contact tracing programme.”
Niall Dickson, Chief Executive of the NHS Confederation said the announcement ‘should alleviate’ some of the pressures but added that care homes had been ‘neglected for too long’, ending his response with:
"When this is over, it will be time to tackle our collective failure to address social care, which is nothing short of a national disgrace."
Further details of the £600m funding haven’t been officially announced by Government yet.