Asked by: Baroness Drake (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they have taken to ensure alternative support will be provided if there are insufficient staff available to support residents in a care home as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Answered by Lord Bethell
We know that many social care providers are working together and with local government and health services to support each other with workforce shortages. We will further facilitate this mutual aid by shortly publishing guidance about the redeployment of staff and the use of volunteers. We are developing our data collection to provide information on workforce pressures across England, ensuring that resources can be targeted where they are most needed. Additionally, on 23 April we launched a new national recruitment campaign which aims to attract 20,000 people into social care over the next three months. To enable quick recruitment, we are temporarily providing free-of-charge Disclosure and Barring Service applications and fast-track Barred List checks for many of our vital social care roles. We are also working with NHS England to ensure that nurses returning to practice are deployed where they are most needed.