Care minister Helen Whately defends her response to Covid deaths in care homes

Care minister Helen Whately has defended her response to Covid deaths in care homes during the pandemic in an exclusive interview and has admitted the government is now "looking into" why some care homes are still not allowing indoor visits.

Helen Whately spoke as a guest on the ‘Let’s Talk About Care’ podcast on 24 March to comment on what she had done to help the care sector during the coronavirus pandemic.

Having taken up her post in February 2020 partly because of “the great opportunity for social care reform which the government is committed to”, the minister said she would announce plans for reform “this year” but would not reveal what reforms would be delivered.

'There were times... I thought I could do with a few hours off'

Of her first few weeks in the job, care minister Helen Whately said: “That was also the point at which the pandemic was 'taking off'… with people dying of Covid in care homes.

"My focus was on what were the things [the] government could do from our position."

Under fire for government decisions concerning social care early in the pandemic while frontline care staff battled to save lives, the minister was asked if there were times in the last year that she had wanted to quit.

She said: "I'm not really like that. There were times when... I thought 'Oh I could do with a few hours off'."

PPE shortages and lack of care home testing: ‘It took us a while’

Far from admitting the government failed to deliver what the care sector needed early on in the pandemic, the minister said: “We worked with the NHS on being able to provide more supplies of PPE but as everyone knows that was a time when there was a global shortage of PPE.

“It took us a while to be able to get to where we are today where we are able to supply the whole of the social care sector with the PPE that it needs.

"It’s taken, understandably, some time to set up a system that can provide PPE on that scale.

“People wanted more tests, it took us a while as a country to build up our testing capacity…from 100 a week to now we do millions in a week”.

She said she helped, particularly through the summer of 2020, to support care homes and the sector “through the second wave”.

Minister "looking into" why some care homes are not allowing indoor visits

While her access to Covid testing data showed “tens of thousands of visits have been taking place since early March”, the minister said, despite government guidance recommending care homes have indoor visits for families, “not all care homes are opening up to indoor visits at the moment“.

Some care homes are closed to visitors due to coronavirus outbreaks in accordance with guidance but others have no outbreaks and still ban indoor visitors.

She said a team from the DHSC is now working with councils and care homes “to look into why might a care home not be supporting visiting”.

80% vaccination is needed amongst each care home's staff to be safe

The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) has set a benchmark of 80 per cent vaccination amongst care home staff for care homes to be deemed safe.

Only a quarter of care homes in London have achieved this to date.

The minister said: “Overall, on average across the country, 76 per cent of care home staff have been vaccinated.

“We are working and the NHS is working really hard to increase those numbers further to get to …making sure in every care home at least 80 per cent of staff have been vaccinated.”

Funding for care providers not ruled out

The minister did not rule out targeted funding for care providers, if a change in law requiring mandatory vaccination for care workers leads to large quantities of care staff leaving the sector because they do not want to be vaccinated.

She said: “The government is indeed looking at whether the right way to protect care home residents…would be to require vaccination for those who are working in care homes.

“We know that some care homes, some providers are doing this already and are requiring their staff to be vaccinated, others are taking a different approach.

“A decision will be made when we’ve looked at it thoroughly.”

When asked why social care only had emergency funding (including for free PPE) extended for three months until June, while the NHS had a six month extension, the minister said this was the result of a “different decision making process” and “different ways budgets are set” for health as opposed to social care.

Days after the podcast was recorded, the care minister announced on 30 March that the government was extending free PPE to all health and care providers. until the end of March 2022, as the expectation of usage will remain high throughout the next financial year.

Sleep in shifts: ‘Care workers should be paid in accordance with the law’

In response to a Supreme Court ruling that home care workers are not entitled to national minimum wage for sleep-in shifts, the care minister said in the podcast: “I feel very strongly that care workers should receive a fair wage.

"Obviously and absolutely, care workers should be paid in accordance with the law.

“Whenever I hear stories of people not being paid the minimum wage or the living wage when they should be…and if I hear stories for instance of domiciliary care workers not being paid for the travel time between appointments I absolutely disagree with that.

"There are over a million brilliant people working in social care across the country. It will be better if we had lower turnover in the workforce and a more stable workforce and I would also like to see clearer career progression and qualifications."

To listen to the full podcast click here