Recommendation 1

HM Government Accepted

Throughout the pandemic the government made available over £2.9 billion in specific COVID-19 funding to support the adult social care sector, including £1.81 billion for infection prevention and control (IPC), £523 million for testing and £582.5 million for workforce capacity, recruitment, and retention. From May 2020 until March 2022 the Infection Control and Testing Fund ensured the care sector received financial support to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and protect people drawing on care and support. It was used to pay for a range of additional costs incurred by adult social care providers due to heightened IPC measures, such as paying for staff time taken to undertake tests, testing visitors, offsetting costs arising due to restrictions on staff working across multiple sites and paying for staff time and travel expenses to receive vaccines. In February 2022, we set out our Living with COVID strategy to relax restrictions where possible, including removing all remaining legal restrictions, while still protecting people most vulnerable to COVID-19. In line with the strategy, most IPC measures in adult social care have now been relaxed. Restrictions on staff movement have ended and the testing burden on staff has been significantly reduced, including no longer having to test visitors. We have also moved away from emergency funding models and have ended the Infection Control and Testing Fund. We expect all care providers to support good health and safety practice, with staff staying away from the workplace when their presence would be a health risk to those in their care, as they would have done before the pandemic. We are continuing to provide free PPE until March 2024 (or until stock runs out), to continue to support providers to protect against COVID-19. The costs of other remaining IPC measures are now the responsibility of care providers. 6 Government response Immediate pressures Conclusion 3 – short term funding Conclusion 3 - The Government is focused on long-term reform of adult social care, but in order to get to the future it needs to save the sector from the brink of collapse. Covid-19 has highlighted the underlying structural challenges of rising demand, unmet need, and difficulties recruiting and retaining staff, and has also exacerbated them. On top of that, there are severe current pressures arising from increases in the National Living Wage and the National Minimum Wage, and from rising inflation. We strongly disagree with the former Minister for Local Government, Faith and Communities that adult social care has adequate funding currently, having received compelling evidence that there is an immediate need for additional funding. The Government should allocate additional funding this year through the adult social care grant, cover inflationary pressures and unmet care needs, and should announce this as soon as possible so that local authorities can plan how to cope best with the pressures they are facing.