The government has announced an additional ÂŁ250 million to the Adult Social Care Infection Control Fund to help care providers in England with infection control activities. As part of this fund, care providers may be able to implement digital care management services to help them in this next step out of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Here, we explore how PASS can support the infection control efforts of adult social care providers and how you can access this new funding.
Why Has The Infection Control Fund Been Announced?
The purpose of the funding is to support adult social care providers to reduce the rate of COVID-19 transmission within and between care settings through effective infection prevention and control practices.
As a digital care management service, supporting infection control activities is a core role of PASS. The benefits of adopting PASS include:
• Removing unnecessary visits to the homes of the people you care about by updating care plans in real time on your mobile.
• Immediately accessing care notes in real time and reducing travel, because care notes won’t need to be collected from care receivers’ homes.
• Recording COVID-19 vaccination status and test results for staff and care receivers. You can also note whether people you care about are self-isolating.
• Monitoring PPE stock levels. Staff are able to record and report office and individual levels of PPE stock in real time.
• Keeping family and friends of the people you care about up to date with their care. They can also send messages to your office. This means they will have less need to travel to their loved ones’ home to check on them.
The fund can also be used for the below purposes:
• To ensure staff who are isolating receive their normal wages while doing so.
• To limit or cohort staff to individual groups of residents or floors/wings, for example paying for extra staff cover to provide the necessary level of care and support to residents.
• To support recruitment of additional staff and volunteers if they’re needed to enable staff to work in only one care home.
• To help to increase the uptake of team member vaccinations.
Who Is Eligible To Use The Infection Control Fund?
The fund is open to all care homes and home / community care providers to keep their team members and the people they care about safe. However, there are certain conditions which providers will need to meet in order to be allocated with this funding, including completing the Capacity Tracker regularly.
The funding is then being administered by each providers’ respective local authority, even to those providers without a formal contract with their local council.
Speaking of the announcement, Duncan Campbell, Director at everyLIFE Technologies, said:
“At everyLIFE Technologies, we welcome the government’s decision to extend the Adult Social Care Infection Control Fund. Community care and care home providers have been on the front line of the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic and, although now cautiously emerging from this period, this extra funding will provide much needed support to help the people they care about and team members stay safe in the months ahead.
“With £250 million available, we’re confident that this fund will make a real difference in helping adult social care providers in this next step out of the pandemic, including in helping them on their digital journey.”
You can find more information on the Infection Control and Testing Fund here.
