COVID RELATED INFORMATION

1. Care Homes COVID compulsory vaccination survey, deadline 31 July (information for Birmingham Care Homes)
2. Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) Champion/Lead Study Day – 22 and 23 September 2021 (information for Birmingham Care Homes)
3. FINAL REMINDER – ACTION REQUIRED BY FRIDAY 16 JULY – Adult Social Care Infection Control and Testing Fund (ICTF) Spend Reporting required (information for all care providers with a CQC registered location in Birmingham) 
4. Infection Control and Testing Fund (ICTF) Grant Extension - July 2021 to September 2021 (information for all care providers with a CQC registered location in Birmingham) 
5. Capacity Tracker – Change to IPC (weekly) visiting questions from 20 July 2021 – (information for all care homes)

IN OTHER NEWS

6. REMINDER - Ensure your current insurance documents are uploaded to the CareMatch Portal (information for all Birmingham contracted providers)

 

COVID 19 RELATED INFORMATION

1.Care Homes COVID compulsory vaccination survey, deadline 31 July (information for Birmingham Care Homes)

As you will no doubt be aware from the national press release from 16 June 2021, the Government are currently preparing Regulations to allow only vaccinated staff to be deployed into care homes. This includes anyone who has to enter the care home for work including carers, administrative staff, maintenance staff, care home managers and owners, District Nurses, GP’s, social workers, CQC inspectors, faith leaders, therapists, tradespeople etc.

National press release about COVID 19 vaccination of staff in care homes

We know that current vaccine uptake rates across care home staff varies significantly and we do appreciate there is very little confirmed detail at present. However, we are conducting a short survey to help us understand the impact on care homes across the City and to ensure we can collectively mitigate any potential risks of this decision.

We will be conducting a similar survey with potential visiting professionals that we are able to identify, to ensure we do our best to identify any risks.

The deadline for completing this survey is Sunday 31 July 2021

Please use the following link to complete the survey;

Birmingham Care Homes compulsory COVID 19 vaccination survey 

The survey is for Birmingham care homes only

A printable pdf copy of the survey has been sent to care providers so that you can see what is in the on-line survey. Please do not use this to make your return. If you don't have this pdf copy, please email marketintelligence@birmingham.gov.uk

2.Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) Champion/Lead Study Day – 22 and 23 September 2021 (information for Birmingham Care Homes)

Birmingham care homes are invited by Birmingham Community Health Care Trust (BCHC) and Birmingham City Council to send their IPC champions/IPC leads to a study day at Birmingham City Football Stadium on either the 22 or 23 September 2021.  The aim of the day is to enable IPC champions/leads to identify and support improvement with infection prevention and control practice within their workplace and to build a network of champions to drive improvement/share good practice across the sector..

To book please contact the IPC Care Home Team on 0121 466 6550 (option 5) or email IPCdata@nhs.net

Please see our previous bulletin item for further information about IPC champions and the BCHC dedicated IPC service to care homes;

Bulletin 46, Item 5 about IPC champions and BCHC IPC service

3.FINAL REMINDER – ACTION REQUIRED BY FRIDAY 16 JULY – Adult Social Care Infection Control and Testing Fund (ICTF) Spend Reporting required (information for all care providers with a CQC registered location in Birmingham) 

Following the distribution of the Infection Control and Testing Fund grants to Care Homes and CQC registered Community Care providers, you are now required to report how the funding has been spent between 1 April and 30 June 2021, and to declare any unspent grant money which will need to be returned to the Council. The reporting requirement is a condition of the grant allocation and the data will be used to enable the Council to report spending to the Department of Health and Social Care. Failure to complete the spend return will mean that the whole of the grant allocation must be returned to the Council. The grant allocation lists confirming the amount of funding allocated to each registered Location have been circulated to care providers. If you don't have copies, please email marketintelligence@birmingham.gov.uk

Please complete the relevant online form as soon as possible and by no later than 16 July 2021. A separate form is required for each CQC registered location.

ICTF spending report for Community Care Locations

ICTF spending report for Care Home Locations

The forms now include the facility to print a PDF copy for your own records.

4.Infection Control and Testing Fund (ICTF) Grant Extension - July 2021 to September 2021 (information for all care providers with a CQC registered location in Birmingham) 

Further to the government announcement about the extension of the Infection Control and Testing Fund we are currently working through the Council’s governance process to enable allocations to be made to care providers.

As with the previous ICTF grant there is a requirement to passport some of the fund directly to care homes and CQC registered community care providers and a discretionary element which allows greater flexibility. Subject to Chief Officer approval, we intend to administer the discretionary element of funding by inviting applications from care homes, CQC community care providers and day centres. We will release details of the application process in due course.

Our intention is very much that money needs to remain with the sector and our focus is on distributing funds to as many providers as possible.  However we do need to comply with the grant conditions and where providers have not done so, the conditions were clear. The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) now require the Council to return all unspent funds in relation to the Infection Control Fund 2 (ICF2) (October 2020 to March 2021) and Rapid Testing Fund (RTF) (January 2021 to March 2021). The Council must now collect from grant recipient locations all declared unspent funds and full grant allocations from those locations which failed to report grant spending in April 2021. Subject to Chief Officer approval, we intend to administer this as follows.

• Locations which declared underspends in their April spending returns – we shall recoup this automatically from your ICTF Extension allocation due to be distributed in July and August. In instances where the July/August allocation is insufficient to cover the underspend we shall invoice you for the outstanding amount. Any deductions will be made clear when we publish the allocations list.
• Locations which failed to complete ICF2 and RTF April 2021 spend report forms – we intend to recoup the full allocations of ICF2 and RTF grants. We shall contact each location by email to inform them of the amount we shall be deducting from the ICTF Extension allocation and whether we shall need to invoice for any outstanding amounts.

Further instructions will be issued in due course via the regular Thursday Comms bulletin.

5.Capacity Tracker – Change to IPC (weekly) visiting questions from 20 July 2021 – (information for all care homes)

The IPC funding (weekly) visiting questions contained within Capacity Tracker will be updated on the evening Monday 19 July 2021 to reflect current Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) guidance and make it easier for providers to complete.

Details of the changes are as follows:

The IPC weekly visitor question: In the last 7 days, have your residents been able to receive visitors?

Will be replaced with: In the last 7 days have your residents been able to take part in visits in and/or out of your care home in line with government guidance?

The selection for your response will remain unchanged i.e.

 Yes / No / only in exceptional circumstances

Dependent on the answer you select you may then be asked one or more of the following questions:

• In the last 7 days what visiting options have you supported? (select from a list supplied)
• In the last 7 days how many residents have you had self-isolating following a visit out (day/ overnight)?
• What burdens/barriers are you currently facing when supporting/trying to support visits as per the government guidance? (select from a list supplied)

Further guidance will be posted within the Capacity Trackers Resource Centre should you require additional support.

Your responses to these updated questions will help the understanding around how the guidance is being implemented which will inform any future updates and help DHSC better target support. It will also help DHSC understand how many visits out of your settings are considered by providers to be high-risk.

 

IN OTHER NEWS………

6.REMINDER - Ensure your current insurance documents are uploaded to the CareMatch Portal (information for all Birmingham contracted providers)

Thank you to those providers that have been working with Commissioners and the Market Intelligence Team over the last week to ensure we have your correct and current insurance documents in the CareMatch Portal. Unfortunately, those providers that have not actioned the request below will start to receive breach notices.

It is an important part of your contractual obligations to Birmingham City Council, and a legal requirement, to ensure you have valid insurance at all times. The levels and types of insurance required by the Framework Agreement for the Provision of Home Support for Children and Young People with Disabilities and Home Support for Adults and the Flexible Contracting Arrangements for the Provision of Care Homes With and Without Nursing Services and Care and Support (Supported Living) are as follows;

• Employers Liability (including volunteers) Insurance - to be as a minimum in accordance with statutory legislation (currently £5m)
• Public Liability Insurance (including loss or damage to service user’s personal effects) - Minimum £10m
• For nursing homes only: Professional Indemnity / Treatment Cover, which must be a minimum of £5m and Negligence which must also be a minimum of £5m

Birmingham City Council requires £10m Public Liability Insurance for the following reasons;

• This was the outcome of a review of risk around all services either contracted out or provided to the Council taking into account recent judgements around risk and benchmarking the levels of cover we require against those set by other public authorities.
• The limit of £5m has been unchanged for many years. The £10m takes into account the size of awards given by the courts, general claims inflation from the period when the £5m limit was set and the effect of the Lord Chancellor’s decision in 2017 to significantly reduce the discount rate to be applied to awards for personal injury.

If you have not already done so;

• You must check your current insurance documents are for the correct level of cover and have been uploaded to the CareMatch Portal
• Please find a step by step guide on how to upload your insurance documents to the CareMatch Portal in Section 8.8 of the User Guide which you can download below. If you are experiencing technical issues uploading the documents, please contact market.intelligence@birmingham.gov.uk

CareMatch Portal User Guide

No evidence of current insurance cover at the before mentioned levels will be treated as a breach of contract until evidence of cover is provided.

Further information

Providers are finding the cost of insurance has risen as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and as such it is important that enough time is allocated for finding an alternative insurance provider, if needed, before your current insurance expires. Contact your Care Association to see what support and advice they can offer.

As mentioned in previous bulletin items, functionality was added to the CareMatch Portal in December 2020 to enable efficiencies in the collection of up to date insurance documentation. Reminder alerts were added to the system to inform you when your insurance documents were coming up to their expiry date and when they had expired to assist you to remain compliant with your contractual obligations around insurance.

For further information on the CareMatch Portal functionality around insurance documentation and how to ensure you are receiving these alerts, please review the previous provider bulletin items on this topic, which can be found here;

Bulletin 18 Item 3

Bulletin 31 Item 1