Recommendation 13

We heard how frequently social care had taken second place to the NHS’s needs, particularly in accessing test kits and results, and securing reliable PPE supply for care homes, which had been neither timely nor coordinated.33 When questioned, the Department denied that social care had been forgotten, citing the work it had done in the sector and that it had “taken a more national and more interventionist role in social care than ever before” when issuing guidance and additional funding, for example. It said that testing capacity had been limited but as it increased was opened up to all care staff.34 On the subject of PPE supply, the Department asserted, “at no point has there been an instruction for the NHS to be prioritised over the care sector”.35 When we pressed the Department on why it did not publish its action plan for adult social care until 15 April, over four weeks after the initial NHS letter on plans to respond to the outbreak, it told us the plan brought together and enhanced previous guidance given.36 Government Policy prior to the action plan was that the social care sector procure their own PPE. This was against a background of the NHS’s huge purchasing power and tightening domestic and worldwide demands for PPE. It did acknowledge, however, that the thousands of independent providers and the funding model for social care made for a very challenging and tough context in which to respond to COVID-19. This was apparent in the imperfect data it had to work with. The Department told us that data was much better and more timely in the NHS than for social care, due to the structural differences between the two.37