Policy Updates 28th March 2022
The following policy updates have been curated from the week commencing 28th March 2022.
New Policy
Government sets out next steps for living with COVID
New guidance outlines free COVID-19 tests will continue to be available to help protect specific groups once free testing for the general public ends on 1 April
Found at: GOV.UK
Covid-19 Update : Statement made on 29 March 2022
The Government’s objective in the next phase of the COVID-19 response is to enable the country to manage COVID-19 like other respiratory illnesses, while minimising mortality and retaining the ability to respond if a new variant emerges with more dangerous properties than the Omicron variant. As a result, the Government now assesses that it is time to transition its response towards guidance and encouraging responsible behaviours, while targeting protection towards those individuals most at risk from the virus. I have today set out the future approach in England to testing beyond April.
Found at: UK Parliament
The Draft Statutory Sick Pay (General) (Coronavirus Amendment) Regulations 2022
The Government has previously committed to reviewing the changes to SSP in line with the expiry of the Coronavirus Act (CVA) and, as the CVA provisions will lapse on 24 March, so too should the SSP deeming provisions. On 21 February, the Prime Minister confirmed the changes to SSP would end on 24 March, along with the CVA provisions, thus returning to SSP rules which were in place before the pandemic.
Found at: GOV.UK
Integrated care partnerships: engagement findings
In September 2021, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), NHS England (NHSE) and the Local Government Association (LGA) published ICP engagement document: integrated care system (ICS) implementation. Following that publication, the DHSC, NHSE and LGA conducted a trilateral engagement exercise with those who have an interest in the formation of integrated care partnerships (ICPs). This paper sets out the key findings we heard as part of that engagement. It also proposes next steps and outlines how DHSC, NHSE and the LGA intend to support and guide the development of these new partnership arrangements going forward.
Found at: GOV.UK
Updated Policy
Personal protective equipment (PPE): local contacts for accessing free PPE
25 March 2022
Updated email addresses for Barnet, Camden, Haringey, Havering, Islington and Surrey County.
Found at: GOV.UK
Guidance on Care Home Visiting
On 22 March 2022, the Department of Health and Social Care amended its guidance on visiting care homes in England. The guidance titled ‘Guidance on care home visiting’ applies to all residential care homes and replaces previous guidance. The latest guidance reduces the amount of time that care homes need to implement outbreak management measures. Currently, care homes are required to implement outbreak management measures if they have two or more confirmed cases of COVID-19, or clinically suspected cases of COVID-19, among people in the same setting with the onset of symptoms occurring within the same ten day period. It was previously fourteen days but it is now reduced to just ten days. This amendment is made in conjunction with the Government’s overall stance, which is to continue to ease restrictions relating to COVID-19 and to learn to live with it.
Management of an outbreak of COVID-19 in a care home
If a care home experiences an outbreak of COVID-19, it is then subject to outbreak management guidance. The guidance advises that in the event of an outbreak of COVID-19 in a care home, the home should restrict visiting arrangements and suspend indoor visiting except in exceptional circumstances such as end of life visits or if the person is an ‘essential care giver’. An essential care giver is somebody who the resident may have an existing personal relationship with prior to admission. The aim is for the resident to gain additional companionship, care and support. Their role is to support resident’s health and well-being, including in periods of outbreaks of COVID-19.
What has changed for care home providers?
As stated above, the amount of time that care homes are required to implement outbreak management measures has been reduced from fourteen days to ten days. However, subject to a risk assessment from a care home’s local Health Protection Team (“HPT”) outbreak management restrictions may only need to be in place for seven days. This is conditional on there being two sets of PCR tests on residents and staff being returned clear with no positive COVID-19 test results. Therefore, satisfying the risk assessment criteria assessed by the HPT. The current risk assessment criteria that the HPT has regard to is considering the impact of the outbreak and capability of a care home to facilitate window or other visits without cohorting or grouping residents and staff. This will allow and facilitate a continuation of visiting in some capacity, which is vital for residents’ well-being.
What happens when a care home experiences an outbreak of COVID-19?
When a care home is classified as experiencing an outbreak of COVID-19, all movement within a care home should be minimised as per the guidance. Furthermore, other methods of contact between residents and family members should still be encouraged in alternative means such as:
visits in well-ventilated spaces with substantial screens, visiting pods or from behind windows
telephone calls
video calls
newsletters
emails, letters, cards or photographs
It is important to note that outbreak management measures will be required to be in place for different lengths of time, depending on the individual circumstances of each care home. For example, if PCR tests return a negative test result for COVID-19 in both sets of PCR tests and the HPT criteria is met, outbreak management restrictions could only be needed for seven days. Whereas, if PCR tests return with a positive COVID-19 test result or the HPT criteria is not met, restrictions would need to remain in place for 10 days since the onset of symptoms of the latest case of COVID-19 within that care home.
Found at: GOV.UK
Coronavirus (COVID-19): admission and care of people in care homes
22 March 2022
Updated to reduce the duration of outbreak management in care homes from 14 days to 10 days.
Found at: GOV.UK
PPE portal: how to order COVID-19 personal protective equipment (PPE)
24 March 2022
Removed references to order limits as these are now available to see on the portal. Added information on new sectors that can sign up and how they can contact their local authority or local resilience forum.
Found at: GOV.UK
Wider Stakeholder News
Sector leaders call for action on social care workforce
National adult social care organisations have come together to call on the Government to deliver a long-term care workforce strategy and tackle the issue of care worker pay.
These organisations, which represent people who draw on care and support, social care providers, care workers and commissioners, all argue that action on these key issues will help address the serious problem of recruitment and retention and in turn, deliver better support for people across our communities.
Found at: Skills for Care
Health and Social Care Secretary Sajid Javid speech at Care England 2022 conference
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Sajid Javid, gave a speech at the conference on Wednesday 23 March 2022.
Found at: GOV.UK
We need your help! Work Experience for Health & Social Care students and Bath College
are looking for support from employers in the Health & Social Care setting. We are desperately trying to source work experience and industry placements for our students which need to take place over the next couple of months. At this stage we are willing to work around your requirements with regards to timings etc. We would be looking for 30 or 60 hour placements for BTEC students as well as larger placements (315 hours over 2 years) for our T-Level Health students. These placements can be completed in a block or over a few weeks. If you cannot commit to this amount of time but are willing to offer a few hours then we would still love to hear from you. In all honesty, we are starting to get concerned around the lack of placements we have been able to secure this year. The last couple of years the awarding body have been able to bypass placements due to covid, but unfortunately for us now, we must now continue as normal fulfilling the entire placement requirement.
We understand that you may have specific requirements with regards to vaccination status or age. This is not a problem, please just make us aware.
In the long term, providing work placements can really beneficial to your company in terms of recruitment. You could end up providing a placement for the next best pick of local talent in your industry, who will be looking for full time, permanent work after college (or even to accompany their studies)
Appropriate settings include those listed below (this is not an exhaustive list, other settings may also be appropriate.):
Social care placement examples:
youth work
charitable services, e.g. Macmillan, British Heart Foundation, young carers groups, local charities
care homes
work shadowing or observing a professional
children’s centres
special educational needs schools
local authority social services.
Administrative support placements:
medical records
medical secretaries
portering.
Complementary services:
Care farms
Riding for the Disabled Association (RDA)
Dementia Cafes.
Health and fitness centres or organisations where the focus is on care values and health outcomes e.g. physiotherapist.
Healthcare placement examples:
NHS and independent sector – adult, children and young people services
inpatient services, e.g. mental health, learning disability, older person, paediatric, neonatal
community teams (older people, adult, child), e.g. palliative care, learning disability services, mental health teams (including perinatal mental health teams)
paramedic services
day clinics/outpatient services
primary care – general practice and general practice nurses
district and community services: outreach teams, health visiting and family support services, domiciliary care, substance misuse services, supported living services, assisted living teams
respite services
hospice (adult and child)
nursing homes
reablement services
school nursing.
If you are able to support us in anyway, please contact my colleague @Ebner Heatley (copied into this email), he will speak to you directly and will get the process moving as quickly as possible. We really appreciate your time and are so grateful for any support you can offer us. If this email is not directly applicable to you or your department, or is not something you can’t offer, please forward this onto anyone that you think may be able to help us. Please contact Nikki on the details below:
Nicola Martin
SME Engagement Manager
Business & Technical Skills
Tel: 01225 328 500 / 07811980634
Email: Nicola.Martin@bathcollege.ac.uk
Web: www.bathcollege.ac.uk
Important DHSC Communication to All Capacity Tracker Users
As we move into the next financial year, we need to give you some important messages about Capacity Tracker:
Whilst the ICTF will conclude on 31 March, we would like to emphasis the importance of continued submission of data.
As a result of sector feedback on data items in the Capacity Tracker collection, questions that are no longer required will be removed and reporting frequency on most items will be reduced. From 4 April, many questions directly relating to the ICTF and flu vaccination will be removed. There will also be a reduction in the frequency relating to questions on the workforce and the COVID-19 vaccination from daily to weekly.
A field for care homes will be added to enable you to report the number of residents receiving a second booster where relevant. In addition to removing these questions, DHSC are working on a further phase to either remove or improve remaining questions, including improving vital areas such as the questions on workforce and visiting.
Care Home vacancy information is used across NHS England and LAs daily to provide information on bed capacity nationally. Using the Capacity Tracker to identify vacant capacity remains invaluable for those staff in discharge teams, maintaining daily updates provides confidence the information is accurate and importantly for those waiting for care, saving time and resources to reduce delays for people in hospital awaiting discharge.
We are taking feedback on board about ways of maximising the value of the CT to you as providers. If you have specific views on how to improve what you see from the analysis pages, please contact DHSC at Capacitytracker-guidance@DHSC.gov.uk.
Further on in the year there will be a more significant consideration about the future of central provider data collection and you will be invited to workshops to discuss your data needs.
Care providers to receive fairer costs for providing care
Local authorities in England will be supported by £1.36 billion from the Health and Social Care Levy to pay a fairer rate of care to adult social care providers. The Market Sustainability and Fair Cost of Care Fund will increase the support available for the care sector as part of the government’s 10 year vision for reform set out in the People at the Heart of Care white paper. People paying privately for adult social care often pay a higher rate than those funded by the local authority. This fund will help close the gap.
Found at: GOV.UK
More action needed to ensure people with a learning disability, autistic people and people with mental ill health get the right care at the right time
Not enough progress has been made to address the recommendations made by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in its 2020 ‘Out of sight – who cares?’ restraint, segregation, and seclusion review. In a progress report published today, CQC finds that there are still too many people in hospital. Once in hospital they often stay too long, do not always experience therapeutic care and are still subject to restrictive interventions.
Found at: CQC
Digital & Data Security News
National Data Opt-Out for CQC Registered Services: Deadline 31 July 2022
The national data opt-out gives everyone the ability to stop health and adult social care organisations from sharing their confidential patient information for reasons other than providing their individual care and treatment.
The deadline for care providers to demonstrate that they are compliant with the National Data Opt-Out policy has now moved to 31 July 2022. We have now published our social care guidance, which includes actions for organisations to take. The guidance has been reviewed by the Department of Health and Social Care
Care providers urged to bid for technology test bed funding
Care providers are being invited to apply for grants of £75,000 so they can test out with older people which technology tools and digital housing services work best for them and explore why.
The funding is part of the Technology for our Ageing Population: Panel for Innovation (TAPPI) project – led by the Housing Learning and Improvement Network (Housing LIN), the TEC Services Association (TSA) and funded by the Dunhill Medical Trust – which is calling for ‘care-ready’ digital infrastructure to be woven into the fabric of all new and retrofitted homes, right from design stage.