Coronavirus (COVID-19) Special Brief – 12 June 2020

There has been a series of noteworthy announcements made this week. On Monday, the Department of Health and Social Care announced the launch of a new social care sector COVID-19 support taskforce. The aim of the taskforce is to support the care sector and prevent further transmission. We responded to this announcement, calling for the taskforce to adopt five key principles - read our statement here.

Yesterday (Thursday 11 June), the Office of National Statistics (ONS) released the second statistical bulletin in its Coronavirus and the social impacts on disabled people in Great Britain series. This was later followed by the publication of the ADASS Coronavirus Survey 2020. Links to both pieces of research are included below and our statement is available to read here.

ADASS has confirmed that a second more focussed piece on funding will be published imminently. We will update and respond accordingly.

Thank you to those who attended our member CEO virtual event earlier this week to discuss the VODG Futures programme. It was an incredibly insightful meeting and we look forward to working with you on next steps.

Please find below communications from NHS North of England Commissioning Support Unit in relation to the planned changes to the Capacity Tracker.

At the request of Public Health England (PHE), we have added a number of additional questions to the Capacity Tracker relating specifically to systematically identifying ‘recovery from outbreaks of COVID-19 in care homes’. Around 40% of care homes in England to date have experienced outbreaks of COVID-19 and the duration of these outbreaks has been prolonged in many instances. Existing PHE data enables an understanding of when an outbreak has begun but not when an outbreak has finished and the home is in recovery. Understanding how long outbreaks last and how quickly outbreaks are controlled is a very important issue for both PHE and the care home community. It may also be a trigger for changes in the advice and guidance about control measures that must be followed at the onset of the outbreak. PHE define ‘recovery’ from an outbreak as no new cases (clinically suspected or laboratory confirmed) in either staff or residents in a care home for 28 days or more. Once this point is reached, the care home is then described as ‘recovered’. Any subsequent cases beyond this time point may indicate another outbreak and again could be the trigger for new infection control measures that must be used for a period of time. In order to get accurate information, we are asking care home managers to enter data on new laboratory confirmed or clinically suspected cases of COVID-19 infection in either residents or staff on the Capacity Tracker every day.  

We hope this will not be a demanding ask and that colleagues will understand the value of having timely and accurate information to identify outbreaks and when they have ended. The new questions...will be available in the Capacity Tracker from Thursday 11 June replacing the existing COVID-19 questions.   

This data will be used by Local Authority Directors of Public Health and Directors of Adult Social Services and their partners, local Health Protection Teams, Clinical Commissioning Groups, and care homes themselves to understand how effectively any identified outbreaks are being controlled and what further help and support may be needed. The information will also be used at national level by the Department of Health and Social Care, Public Health England, NHS England & NHS Improvement and partner organisations to further develop public health programmes and policy initiatives to support care homes in preventing and managing outbreaks of COVID-19 now and over the coming months. We will closely monitor the impact and value of these additional questions and welcome feedback from end-users via [email protected]