Recommendation 4

The Department’s focus on supporting hospitals meant assistance to social care providers was neglected. The pandemic has shown the tragic impact of delaying much needed social care reform and treating the sector as the NHS’s poor relation. This is an issue this Committee has raised concerns about before when we examined 8 COVID-19: Government procurement and supply of Personal Protective Equipment the Department’s approach to readying the NHS and social care for the COVID-19 peak, and in our earlier examinations of the interface between health and social care and on the adult social care workforce. The Department provided NHS trusts with 1.9 billion items of PPE between March 2020 and July 2020, equivalent to 80% of their estimated need. In contrast, it provided the adult social care sector with 331 million items of PPE, equivalent to10% of its estimated need. Social care representatives told us their usual suppliers could not provide PPE, in part because some of it was diverted to the NHS, and consequently some providers ran out of PPE. Some 25,000 patients were discharged to care homes from hospitals, some without being tested for COVID-19, even after it became clear that people could transmit the virus without having symptoms. This contributed significantly to the deaths in care homes during the first wave. Social care was only taken seriously after the high mortality rate in care homes became apparent. Key workers outside of health and social care, including transport and supermarket workers, security guards and taxi drivers, were not provided with PPE, yet doing so could have prevented them becoming ill or passing on the virus. Recommendation: The Department should write to the Committee by the end of April 2021 to explain how it will revise its emergency response plans so that they include who will be supported, how and when. This must give appropriate weight to all sectors of health and social care, as well as occupations outside these sectors which are also