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Without QCS we wouldn’t have been rated as an ‘outstanding service’ Rupert Stocks Registered Manager, Guyatt House
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The Carer Digital
THECARERUK
THECARERUK
Issue 9
Call for Direct Support for Struggling Care Providers
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Campaigners are calling for financial aid to be given directly to care providers to prevent many from going under as they battle coronavirus. Many Care homes/providers were teetering on the edge of collapse before coronavirus crisis, which is now pushing many to the point of bankruptcy. In May the Government launched a new £600 million Infection Control Fund, introduced to tackle the spread of COVID-19 in care homes in addition to £3.2 billion of financial support made available to local authorities to support key public services since the start of the crisis. The fund, which is ringfenced for social care, is given to local authorities to ensure care homes can continue to halt the spread of coronavirus by helping them cover the costs of implementing measures to reduce transmission. However, the Independent Care Group said that the £3.2bn given to local authorities to support care providers again Covid-19 simply wasn’t getting to the front line fast enough. It has written to the Government calling for: • The Care Quality Commission (CQC) to waive or refund care providers’ 2020-21
registration fees • For future Government support to be delivered by the CQC • The Government to indemnify care providers against being sued over Covid-19 deaths. ICG chair, Mike Padgham said: “Whilst deaths are falling, we must not lose sight of the fact that care providers are continuing to struggle financially and there is a very real danger that some will fail. “Providers are seeing falling incomes, through a lack of new clients, and rapidly rising costs from extra staffing and PPE and they need urgent help on the front line now.” He said a good place to start would be the waiving or reimbursement of CQC registration fees for the current year. “This is a significant expense for providers and refunding that money would be a help to them. We have written to the CQC and asked for that to happen,” Mr Padgham added.
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