A planned Amazon-style delivery system for personal protective equipment to care workers will not be nationally available for at least another fortnight, the housing and communities secretary has told MPs, before weekly figures for deaths in care and nursing homes which are on course to rise by more than 2,000.
Robert Jenrick told the housing, communities and local government select committee on Monday that the logistics system for PPE could take three more weeks to launch.
Initially only patients in hospital could get tests in the UK. Then testing was expanded to NHS staff and care home staff. Now up to 10 million essential workers and their families who are showing symptoms of coronavirus can apply for a test via a government website.
The list of essential workers is the same as the one used to allow the children of key workers to carry on going to school during the lockdown. In addition to health and social care staff, the list includes teachers, judges, some lawyers, religious staff, and journalists providing public service broadcasting.
Also included are local civil servants, police, armed service personnel, fire and rescue service staff, immigration officers and prison and probation staff. Some private-sector staff also qualify including vets, those in food production, essential financial services and information technology, as well as those working in the oil, gas, electricity and water sectors.
Clipper Logistics was contracted by the government at the end of March and care home operators have been increasingly outspoken in their warnings that a lack of masks, aprons, gloves, gowns and face shields is causing the spread of the virus in their facilities and putting workers’ lives at risk. About 340 people a day have been dying in care homes of Covid-19, according to official figures.
The largest private care home provider, HC-One, said on Monday that 703 of its residents had died across the UK while last week, Sam Monaghan, the chief executive of MHA, the largest charitable provider, warned: “Our residents and staff have not received the enhanced level of protection they need. The government will be held to account for this.”
Ian O’Neal, son of the care home nurse Suzanne Loverseed, 63, who died after contracting Covid-19, said at the weekend that a lack of PPE killed his mother.
Jenrick told the committee he wanted the Clipper system to be brought online “as quickly as we possibly can” but said it was still being piloted.
“We don’t want to start the system prematurely until we know that it works and can deliver a very secure supply of PPE to the care homes on demand,” he said. “That will happen over the next two to three weeks.”
Vic Rayner, the chief executive of the National Care Forum, which represents charitable care organisations, said the continued delay was “hugely problematic”.
“It was supposed to be ready in early April,” she said. “Eight weeks into this [crisis] and for organisations still to be thinking they don’t have enough PPE to last until the end of the week isn’t at all helpful. PPE is to protect staff and to stop the spread of the virus. You cannot do either if you don’t have the right PPE in place.”
The Clipper system is also due to deliver protective equipment to GP surgeries and pharmacists.
The government has said ensuring supplies of PPE can meet future demand is one of five tests that must be met before the lockdown can be eased.
Jenrick said he thought the tests should include an evaluation of the social care system’s ability to cope. It currently tests only the ability of the NHS to cope.
He said care had become “one of the most important areas of focus now for central government”, with more than 30% of care homes recording outbreaks of Covid-19.
• This article was amended on 5 May 2020 to clarify that the figure given for daily care home deaths relates to those linked to Covid-19.
