Coronavirus tests offered to every care home for elderly

The government has said that all eligible care homes who need them will have received coronavirus tests regardless of symptoms, with kits being delivered across the country.

Since the launch of whole care home testing the government has provided 1,071,103 test kits to 8,984 care homes. To ensure every care home has the support it needs, the government claims to have sent test kits to all eligible care homes unless they stated they did not want to receive them.

Testing asymptomatic workers and residents helps prevent and control outbreaks, meaning that those who test positive can be isolated, reducing the number of people who can spread the virus and protecting the most vulnerable. It also helps to build up a strategic understanding of the prevalence of the virus in local areas and the sector as a whole.

This is in addition to the new Test and Trace service which has an important role in limiting the spread of the virus, and thousands of those who have tested positive have already been contacted and their close contacts traced.

The government also says that test kits have been offered to every care home for over-65s or those with dementia in England. Alzheimer’s Society recently urged the government to put people with dementia at heart of its lockdown solution, as the devastating impact of isolation on health was revealed in new research.

Health and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock said: “We have now managed successfully to offer tests to every care home that is eligible, both for staff testing and for residents to be tested. What that means is that for about three-quarters of a million people living and working in nearly 9,000 eligible care homes, the tests have been delivered.”