Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what guidance his Department has provided to Clinical Commissioning Groups on admitting to hospital residents of care homes with covid-19 symptoms.

On 2 April 2020, the Government, NHS England, Public Health England and the Care Quality Commission co-published guidance for the care sector, entitled ‘Admission and Care of Residents during COVID-19 Incident in a Care Home’.

This contains advice on assessing the appropriateness of hospitalising, infection prevention and control for patient transport, and informing the receiving healthcare facility that the incoming patient has COVID-19 symptoms.

Building on this, the Government published the ‘COVID-19: Our Action Plan for Adult Social Care’ on 15 April 2020. This confirms that, where a care home resident is suffering from more severe COVID-19 symptoms, the individual may need to be admitted to hospital. Decisions should always be made in line with clinical need.

On 1 May 2020, NHS England and NHS Improvement published a letter: ‘COVID-19 response: Primary care and community health support care home residents.’ The letter advises that secondary care providers should accept referrals and admissions from care home residents where clinically appropriate.

In this unprecedented global pandemic, we are constantly reviewing our guidance in line with the best scientific advice.