NHS England and the UK Health Security Agency have created a toolkit of resources to raise awareness of Urinary Tract Infection (UTI) prevention, symptom recognition and treatment which includes advice on how and when to seek help.
ASC Enforcement Guidance 24/25 can be found on the gov.uk website.
NECS (North East Commissioning Support) Capacity Tracker – contact details.
To Log in please access the home page.
Please ensure you log in to the NECS Capacity tracker between the 8th and 14th of every month and update your data. Please remember to click save on the bottom of the page.
Failure to consistently submit the information could result in fines based on your CQC registration fee from NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) who are administering the fines process on behalf of DHSC. Please ensure you are regularly completing the Capacity Tracker, as a minimum once per month during the submission window, there are links to the legislation and guidance below and the Capacity Tracker team are able to offer support.
The DHSC published an FAQ document for Provider Data Provisions which outlines information about support, guidance and enforcement.
• For support completing or updating the system, accessing or using the reports and analytics, you can reach the NECS Support Team by phone 0191 691 3729 or by email capacitytracker@nhs.net.
• For non-technical guidance on how to answer specific questions, you can email capacitytracker-guidance@dhsc.gov.uk.
• For administrative amendments, account support and more, you can contact NECS at: capacitytracker@nhs.net.
The NECS Support Centre is open 8am – 5pm Monday to Friday excluding bank holidays.
Current CQC Registered Home Care Providers will be auto registered on Capacity Tracker on 30th November 2020. Providers will receive an automated email with details on how to log on to the system and further guidance can be found via the Help tab.
Additional Home Care provider users can register by following the this guidance.
Home care providers will need to update the NHS NECS Capacity Tracker with data previously updated in the CQC Homecare Survey. CQC recently issued a communication, on behalf of DHSC, setting out this change.
Information and support on how to register supplied via a leaflet and video.
After logging into the NECS tracker, providers can access an expanded Help menu which contains a range of resources to support providers to complete the tracker.
The reporting window periods are:
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The information below lists the different approaches the Council is using to support the market.
The Adult Social Care Infection Control Fund was first introduced in May 2020. It was extended in October 2020 and, by March 2021 had provided over £1.1 billion of ring-fenced funding to support adult social care providers in England for infection prevention and control (IPC). The Rapid Testing Fund was introduced in January 2021 to support additional rapid lateral flow testing of staff in care homes, and enable indoors, close contact visiting where possible.
Due to the success of the Infection Control Fund and the Rapid Testing Fund in supporting care providers to reduce transmission and re-enabling close contact visiting, these funding streams have been consolidated and extended until June 2021, with an extra £341 million of funding.
This is a new grant, with separate conditions to the original Infection Control Fund, the extension to the Infection Control Fund and the original Rapid Testing Fund.
The purpose of this fund is to support adult social care providers, including those with whom the local authority does not have a contract, to:
This funding is being paid as a Section 31 grant ring fenced exclusively for actions which support care homes and CQC-regulated community care providers mainly to tackle the risk of COVID-19 infections and enable close-contact visiting, and is in addition to funding already received.
The section 31 agreements must be returned before the deadline of 5pm Wednesday on 19 May.
Full guidance is available on the DHSC website via the Infection prevention and control in adult social care: COVID-19 supplement
The detail of the decision relating to allocation of the funding by West Sussex County Council can be found on the County Council’s website.
This grant is being paid in a single instalment in April 2021.
70% is being passed to care homes and CQC regulated community care providers on a per bed basis of £228.85 per bed for care homes and £73.69 per user for community care providers
30% is being allocated at the discretion of WSCC to further support the care sector at a rate of £138.23 per user/per bed for eligible providers.
60% will be passed to care homes on a per bed basis at £179.15 per bed for care homes
40% will be allocated at the discretion of WSCC to further support the care sector at a rate of £91.85 per user/per bed for eligible community care providers.
Please refer to the decision relating to allocation of the funding by West Sussex County Council on the County Council’s website for further details on the discretionary funding.
In order to receive funding, care providers will be required to adhere to the following requirements for the duration of the fund (until 30 June 2021):
Providers in receipt of rapid lateral flow tests are required to register the results as per the Guidance: Coronavirus (COVID-19) testing in adult social care settings. Please note this guidance has been withdrawn as of 03/04/2023 but can still be accessed for reference.
Should there be any anomalies using the tracker, such as information not saving or any other general user support, including account queries and password issues, please contact 0191 691 3729 or email necsu.capacitytracker@nhs.net Include ‘Capacity Tracker’ in the subject line. For technical support, contact necsu.capacity@nhs.net
Please read the DHSC Guidance Annex C: Grant conditions which clearly sets out how the funding can be used in respect of the Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) funding element and also the Rapid Testing Funding element.
Local authorities must distribute the money in line with this document and are required to provide a high level return covering the information set out in Annex E and return it by the dates below. Providers will need to provide this information at least one week prior to DHSC’s deadline (or as indicated by their local authority) to the following timetable:
Update: We will not require services in receipt of this funding to undertake the first spend report (due 19 May). Services will be required to undertake a single report of expenditure against this funding. This report template will be issued to all services for completion in June 2021.
Providers are also required to complete the Capacity Tracker at least once per week until 30 June 2021.
This funding stream came to an end on 31st March 2021 and will be replaced by the Adult Social Care Infection Control and Testing Fund.
On 15 May 2020 the government announced a care home support package backed by a £600m infection control fund. The purpose of the grant was to provide support to adult social care providers, including those with whom the Council does not have a contract, to reduce the rate of COVID-19 transmission in and between care homes and support wider workforce resilience to enable improved infection control.
The infection control grant has seen 2 rounds of funding, which has been allocated to a range of services care homes, care homes with nursing, supported living, extra care, domiciliary care, accommodation-based support, outreach services and shared lives.
Round 1 of the funding was for the period June to September. Information on round 1 can be found by reading the DHSC Guidance: Adult Social care infection Control Fund. The Council was given £13.4m to allocate to providers, 75% to care homes and 25% at the discretion of the Council, for the period June to September. The funding was allocated to providers of care homes, care homes with nursing, supported living, extra care, domiciliary care, accommodation-based support, outreach services and shared lives.
The detail of the decision relating to the 75% allocation via the first round of the funding can be found on the County Council's website.
The detail of the decision relating to the 25% allocation via the first round of the funding can be found on the County Council's website.
Round 2 of the funding was for the period 1st October 2020 to 31st March 2021. Information on round 2 can be found by reading the DHSC Guidance: Adult Social care infection Control Fund: round 2. This allocation was ringfenced differently to Round 1 funding, with 80% ring-fenced for eligible care homes and CQC registered community providers, leaving the 20% balance for distribution across a wider group determined by the local authority. The 20% funding was allocated to supported living services, independent day care services, shared lives services: short breaks services and respite services for carers. Some of the 20% funding was used to help facilitate visiting in care homes and extra care services.
The detail of the decision relating to the 80% allocation via the first round of the funding can be found on the County Council's website.
The detail of the decision relating to the 20% allocation via the first round of the funding can be found on the County Council's website.
West Sussex County Council is due to submit a reporting return to the DHSC by 30/04/2021 to show how the money from round 2 has been spent.
On 16 January, the government announced an extra £120 million funding to support local authorities to manage workforce pressures. Information on the fund can be found by reading the DHSC Guidance: Workforce capacity fund for adult social care. Residential care, CQC registered supported living, extra care and domiciliary care providers were allocated funding to spend on measures to support workforce capacity as identified within the guidance. This was allocated on a per bed basis or per customer basis for community based services.
The full detail of the decision relating to the Workforce Capacity Funding can be found on the County Council’s website.
Please note the links to the relevant documents below:
Workforce Capacity Fund Provider Spend Report
Instructions for completing ASC Workforce Capacity Grant Fund Report
Please note these documents might not be suitable for users with assistive technology. If you need this information in another format, please contact AOPcontracts@westsussex.gov.uk
This funding stream came to an end on 31st March 2021 and will be replaced by the Adult Social Care Infection Control and Testing Fund.
The Rapid Testing Fund was introduced in January 2021 to support additional rapid lateral flow testing of staff in care homes, and enable indoors, close contact visiting where possible. It was paid as a single instalment and could be used to cover expenditure from 2 December 2020 to 31 March 2021.
80% of the funding was ring-fenced for eligible care homes, leaving the 20% balance for distribution across a wider group determined by the local authority.
West Sussex County Council is due to submit a reporting return to the DHSC by 30/04/2021 to show how the money from round 2 has been spent. Providers should therefore submit their reporting return if they have not already for reporting point 6 showing spend data from 2nd December up to 31st March 2021.
For more information on the funding eligibility, allocation, and reporting, please visit the DHSC website Adult Social Care Rapid testing Fund: guidance.
The full detail of the decision relating to the Workforce Capacity Funding can be found on the County Council’s website.
These are payments which have been made by the Council to help to ensure care market resilience during the current public health emergency.
These payments have been made for services supporting customers that are funded by West Sussex County Council (WSCC).
Providers of residential and nursing care, supported living, shared lives and extra care housing have received an uplift of 10% to existing fee rates for 2020/21 for a period of 13 weeks from 1 April - 30 June 2020.
On the same basis, an additional payment of 20% was made to domiciliary care providers for the 12-week period from 29 March - 20 June.
All payments are one-off and non-recoverable by the County Council and have been agreed to cover all additional costs relating to COVID-19.
An additional payment of 5% was made to providers of residential and nursing care, supported living, shared lives and extra care housing based on funded customers in pay on 30th June 2020 taken from data held by the council on that date. The payment covered a period of 13 weeks from 1st July until 30th September.
An additional payment of 5% was made to providers of domiciliary care, supported living, shared lives and extra care housing based on an average of weekly payments from submitted provider returns, based on the four-week cycle ending 27th June 2020. The total period the payments cover is between 1st July until 30th September.
Funding is available from the Education and Skills Funding Agency to contribute towards the cost of apprenticeships. The Agency’s guidance on apprenticeship funding rules gives information on the latest criteria.
The Workforce Development Fund (WDF) is funding made available by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) which is disseminated by Skills for Care.
Digital Social Care is a dedicated space to provide advice and support to the social care sector on technology and data protection from the Department of Health and Social Care.
Skills for Care have brought together useful resources and links from a range of different organisations.
Guidance for people aged 12 and over whose immune system means they are at higher risk of serious illness if they become infected with coronavirus (COVID-19).
Information for the adult social care sector on responding to the coronavirus pandemic.
The action plan sets out the government’s approach for all settings and contexts in which people receive adult social care. This includes people’s own homes, residential care and nursing homes, and other community settings. It applies to people with personal budgets, including those who receive direct payments, and those who fund their own care.
Legislation which came into force as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The strategy outlines the plans to manage the transition through phases of the coronavirus response, including commitments to the NHS and social care sector.
Guidance on how health and care systems should support the safe and timely discharge of people who no longer need to stay in hospital.
Guidance for living safely with respiratory infections, including coronavirus (COVID-19).
Information governance (IG) is all about how to manage and share information safely and securely. NHS England wants to make sure that IG guidance is clear and consistent for everyone working in health and care organisations. This portal brings together national guidance on information governance to help you understand how to use information appropriately to support care.
PHE has published a review of data on disparities in the risk and outcome of COVID-19 and found a disproportionate effect on people with certain characteristics. These include age (people aged 70+), sex (male), ethnicity (some BAME groups), deprivation and people with certain underlying health conditions.
Employers have a responsibility to undertake risk assessments in relation to the workplace. The Health and Safety Executive has produced a guide to workplace risk assessments which you may find helpful.
We strongly encourage all providers to review the guidance included within the above links and use these to build on your existing risk assessment processes.
This is a resource from the National Institute for Health Research which offers help and advice on how to support families at a distance.
The National Falls Prevention Coordination Group (NFPCG) has produced guidance for care homes on how to manage falls, giving helpful advice and access to resources.
CQC inspectors use this set of questions and prompts to look at how well staff and people living in care homes are protected by infection prevention and control (IPC).
Registered providers must notify the CQC about changes, events and incidents that affect the delivery of their service.
The UKHSA data dashboard is produced by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA). The UKHSA is committed to informing the public of current health data in an accessible and transparent way.
The UKHSA data dashboard builds on the success of the COVID-19 in the UK dashboard, which was created as a trusted source of data in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Data played a powerful role in monitoring the pandemic and reacting as it progressed. The COVID-19 dashboard helped the UK government understand case numbers, the impact cases had on hospitals and the number of deaths, and the success of vaccination programmes.
The UK is now Living with COVID-19. While COVID-19 data is still relevant, demand and usage of this data has changed over time. The COVID-19 dashboard normalised access to high-quality, transparent data: the UKHSA data dashboard iterates and expands on the COVID-19 dashboard, sharing more data within the remit of UKHSA.
Further information about the UKHSA data dashboard can be found on the gov.uk website.
Visit the CQC website to find medicines information by type of care setting.
You can sign up for alerts to keep up to date with any changes - for example, via the Medicine Health and Regulatory Authority's (MHRA's) Central Alerting System.
The MHRA also has a web-based cascading system for issuing patient safety alerts, important public health messages and other safety critical information and guidance to the NHS and others, including independent providers of health and social care.
Deaths outside hospital can be verified by people who have been trained to do so in line with their employer's policies. The guidance can also be used by non-medical professionals, who are verifying death using remote clinical support.
Non-medical professionals should not experience any pressure to verify deaths. If they are not comfortable or equipped to verify, they should defer to medical colleagues or refer on to NHS 111, the person’s General Practice or another provider of primary medical services. If they are content to verify, they can use remote clinical support.
Supporting someone who may be approaching the end of their life can be some of the most challenging work that any social care worker faces. Your workforce needs the right skills and knowledge to do their job competently and confidently. Managers also need to make sure that their service has enough trained staff to meet the needs and wishes of the people they support. Skills for Care provides resources for end of life care on their website as in the above link.
Where a person has died while a regulated activity was being provided, providers should notify CQC without delay.
Notification can be via the CQC provider portal (if you have an account) or by email attaching the notification form Death of a person using the service.
The form should be emailed to HSCA_notifications@cqc.org.uk and should not be sent in the post. The form has been updated to include Coronavirus (COVID-19) as a cause of death. The form also asks where the death occurred.
For information regarding the death of employees and volunteers in the adult social care sector, please visit the Workforce and recruitment section.
Business continuity management helps a business, group or an individual care worker to plan for, manage and mitigate risks to the running or delivery of their service. This helps to ensure that the services provided can continue in the event of a disruption, or at the least, be resumed as quickly as possible.
In the light of the current COVID-19 pandemic, and consistently changing requirements affecting your service, you may wish to consider reviewing and updating your business continuity plan.
It is important to promote and maintain the wellbeing of your staff. The Department of Health and Social Care issued guidance you can share with your staff.
If care or support cannot be delivered, providers should risk assess the impact of the missed service, including the safety of the customer and how risk can be mitigated by using support from other means, where possible (see the above list of suggestions).
If you are concerned about your ability to deliver services to your customers as a result of staff shortages, then you should use your business continuity plan to consider all other appropriate ways to deliver services.
If, following this you still have concerns, email aopcontracts@westsussex.gov.uk and outline the gaps in service and the assessed impact.
If you are concerned about the safety of individuals as a result of staff shortages, contact the relevant duty social work team.
Please give your email the following subject line.
COVID-19 service delivery risk + predominant customer group, for example older people (OP), learning disability (LD), mental health (MH) or physical disability (PD).
For a learning disability service, give your email the following subject.
COVID-19 service delivery risk LD
West Sussex County Council has created business continuity planning templates for providers to use. There are separate templates available for Care and Nursing Homes and Domiciliary Care Providers.
It is not mandatory to use these templates and you may choose to use your own or other templates.
Please note these documents might not be suitable for users with assistive technology. If you need this information in another format, please contact aopcontracts@westsussex.gov.uk .
NICE provides guidance, advice, quality standards and information services for health, public health and social care.
The website includes a Rapid Guidelines section dedicated to COVID-19, with topics for a range of audiences.
As we approach winter, we may see an increase of information in the news regarding possible power and utility shortages. There have been recent cases of water mains failures lasting several days in some areas of the county and this information is useful to consider in the event that this should happen to you.
The Priority Services Register is a free support service that ensures help is available to people in vulnerable situations. You can get more information and check the eligibility of people who use your services here.
If you have people using your service that are eligible for the register the next step is to contact the relevant service provider as follows:
For reference, we have linked here to maps showing the areas covered by providers for water supply and wastewater treatment, and electricity.
In the case of an emergency resulting from the loss of utilities, page the Resilience & Emergencies Team on 07623 512200 leaving your name, contact number, address and nature of the call, and follow this up with an email to emergency@westsussex.gov.uk
Please also remember to inform the Care Quality Commission under Reg. 18 (Statutory Notifications) if you experience ‘an event that stops or may stop the provider from carrying on a regulated activity safely and properly'.
