Asked by: Lord Lipsey (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how much of the extra money for social care announced on 7 September will go to pay for (1) the cap, and (2) the revised means test; and how much will go to improving care provision for those in need.
Answered by Lord Kamall
Allocations and profiles will be confirmed as part of the forthcoming Spending Review, which will set out the Government’s spending plans for health and social care for future years. We will work with care users, providers and other partners to develop a white paper for reform later this year.
Asked by: Lord Lipsey (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many people were tested for COVID-19 during the surge testing in Lambeth and Wandsworth in April.
Answered by Lord Bethell
During the surge testing in April, 77,481 people were tested.
Asked by: Lord Lipsey (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many of those tested during the surge testing for COVID-19 in Lambeth and Wandsworth in April returned a positive result.
Answered by Lord Bethell
Of those tested, 128 returned a positive result.
Asked by: Lord Lipsey (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the number of false positive results for COVID-19 among those tested during the surge testing in Lambeth and Wandsworth in April.
Answered by Lord Bethell
We have made no estimate.
Asked by: Lord Lipsey (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many cases of the South African variant of COVID-19 were identified as a result of surge testing in Lambeth and Wandsworth in April.
Answered by Lord Bethell
No samples were identified as containing the South African variant.
Asked by: Lord Lipsey (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what was the scientific evidence used to inform the guidance requiring dentists to leave a gap of one hour between patients.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The Government’s initial infection prevention and control (IPC) guidance was developed by health protection and IPC experts in collaboration with clinicians. Expert reviews and advice from the Department’s New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group informed this guidance.
The original IPC guidance for dental teams, which was published in the NHS England and NHS Improvement standard operating procedure (SOP) was a summary of the COVID-19 IPC guidance.
The guidance for dental teams contained within the SOP has been replaced by an appendix to current main IPC guidance and provides updated post aerosol generating procedure downtime based on recommendations from the Scottish Dental Clinical Effectiveness Programme.
Asked by: Lord Lipsey (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Bethell on 20 August (HL7375), whether they will now answer the question put, namely, what is their assessment of how much the increase in daily reported COVID-19 cases can be attributed (1) to increased testing, and (2) to changes in natural prevalence.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The increase in the number of cases over the past few weeks, affecting particularly young age groups, is not accounted by an increase in testing and indicated a real increase in incidence.
Asked by: Lord Lipsey (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, under the restrictions in place to address the COVID-19 pandemic in England, when two households join to form an extended household, that extended household has to remain the same, or whether another individual or family can be substituted to form a new extended household.
Answered by Lord Bethell
A ‘support bubble’ is a close support network between a household of any size and a single adult household. Households with more than one adult can expand their close support network so that it includes an additional single adult household.
Support bubbles should be exclusive. This means people should not switch the household they are in a support bubble with or make connections with multiple households. This is to avoid creating chains of transmission.
Asked by: Lord Lipsey (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their assessment of how much the increase in daily reported COVID-19 cases can be attributed (1) to increased testing, and (2) to changes in natural prevalence.
Answered by Lord Bethell
Public Health England and the Joint Biosecurity Centre established a Joint Situational Awareness Team that produces a daily situational awareness report to provide an overview of current COVID-19 epidemiology locally, regional and nationally using a range of epidemiological, clinical and other indicators (including testing data). These reports are disseminated to Directors of Public Health and discussed each morning with frontline health protection colleagues to ensure that local knowledge is factored into the interpretation of the data.
Asked by: Lord Lipsey (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, in reporting COVID-19 deaths by location, whether the person’s home address, the hospital where there are treated, or some other factor determines the location recorded.
Answered by Lord Bethell
Public Health England (PHE) reports data on all deaths in people who have had a positive COVID-19 test result confirmed by a public health or National Health Service laboratory. These data include COVID-19 related deaths from all settings, in hospital or elsewhere, and geographical details of residence are assigned using the home postcode of the person who died.
The Office for National Statistics is responsible for publishing mortality statistics for deaths registered in England and Wales. The data is taken from information recorded on the death certificate. The geographical location of a death is assigned according to the address recorded as the usual residence of the deceased. The location of death (hospital, care home, etc) is assigned according to the information provided on the death certificate about the place of death.