Increased Testing in Care Homes

Care England, the largest representative body of independent adult social care providers, has welcomed the extra funds from the Government to help care homes administer more COVID-19 tests.

Professor Martin Green OBE, Chief Executive of Care England, says:
“As community transmission increases, we recognise the need for care homes to provide additional testing for residents, staff and visitors. As such, we welcome the extra £149 million from Government for care homes to address the additional responsibilities placed upon them in terms of testing. We hope that the money will come though as soon as possible in the new year and can dovetail with an increased roll out of a vaccine to residents and staff”.

DHSC announced today £149m for care homes (www.gov.uk) In addition a paper on the evidence on the accuracy of lateral flow device (LFD) testing efficacy and preliminary findings from the evaluation of the DHSC care homes visitor testing pilot was published. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/evidence-on-the-accuracy-of-lateral-flow-device-testing Staff will now be tested three times a week via LFD and PCR.

Martin Green continues:
“The sector is concerned about the reliability of LFD tests. Underpinning all this is of course the need for indemnity insurance in parallel with the NHS to enable the sector to operate at optimum level in this crisis”.