Coronavirus: lessons learned to date report: government response

Coronavirus: lessons learned to date report: government response

The government’s response to the House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee and Science and Technology Committee joint report ‘Coronavirus: lessons learned to date’.

Interesting report - the recommendations from the Committees are:

Planning for future pandemics should have a more developed and explicit consideration of the intense interaction between the NHS and social care. 

The prominence of social care within the Department of Health and Social Care should be enhanced and Ministers must address the relative lack of knowledge and experience of social care within the Department and senior levels of the NHS. 

The Department should ensure that future policy and guidance relating to the sector is well-informed and reflects the diversity of the sector. The Department must also set out how it plans to retain the expertise of the Social Care Taskforce on a more permanent basis. 

Long term reform of social care is overdue and should be pursued as a matter of urgency. The government’s recent announcement on the future of social care is welcome, but the long-term future of the sector remains unresolved. We endorse the Health and Social Care Committee’s call for a 10 Year Plan for Social Care to accompany the 10 Year Plan for the NHS. It must ensure that there is parity between the health and care sectors so that social care is given proper priority in a future crisis. 

We endorse the Health and Social Care Committee’s call for additional resources to be directed to social care. That Committee has made the case for an increase of £7 billion a year by 2023/24. We note that despite the government’s recent announcement the level of new investment in social care from 2023/24 remains unclear. 

The government should review the provision of infection prevention and control measures, including infection prevention and control nurses, to social care and ensure that social care providers, particularly care homes, are able to conduct regular pandemic preparedness drills. The government must ensure that care homes have isolation facilities and social care providers are able to provide safe visiting for family and friends of care home residents.