Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Bethell on 15 June (HL4730), how many (1) claims, and (2) payments,  have been made to the families of deceased care homes staff under the terms of the life assurance scheme for frontline National Health Service and social care staff; and what steps they have taken to draw the attention of families of deceased care homes staff to this scheme.

The Government launched the NHS and Social Care Coronavirus Life Assurance scheme on 20 May 2020. The scheme is non-contributory and pays a £60,000 lump sum where staff who had been recently working where personal care is provided to individuals who have contracted COVID-19 die as a result of the virus.

As of 13 July 2020, the scheme administrator has received 29 claims for social care as a whole in England, of which 25 claims are from the families of staff who had been providing adult social care in a care home. This is out of a total of 57 claims to the scheme. Of these 25, eight have been agreed for payment subject to receiving probate, nine require further information and eight are in the process of consideration.

The Department worked closely with stakeholders in the adult social care sector to ensure the details of the scheme were made as widely available as possible. This included cascading the information to employers through provider representatives, and also through the Care Quality Commission.