I am proud of the immense efforts of health and social care staff across the country and all those who have contributed to the colossal effort in responding to the pandemic. We created seven new Nightingale hospitals in a matter of weeks and gained access to 8,000 beds for NHS use through an unprecedented deal with the independent sector. 33,000 beds were freed up across NHS hospitals – the equivalent of building 50 new district general hospitals as the NHS was not overwhelmed. Over nine million COVID-19 tests have now been processed UK-wide, and we have delivered over two billion items of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to NHS and social care staff across England.
My Department will continue to evolve our approach as we learn more about the disease and our ability to respond to it, for example in the areas highlighted in this statement. It is vital that we do so to inform the handling of any further waves or to respond to future disease outbreaks and other health crises. Work continues apace in the Department and the sector to prepare us for the months ahead.
Developing our understanding of the virus
As we are responding to a new disease, we are continuously learning and adapting our response. The Special Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) has been drawing on the best science in the UK and globally to provide the best, independent advice to Government. As the science has developed, so too has our response.
When COVID-19 was first discovered there was no data about either the proportion of people who have it asymptomatically (without symptoms) or whether those who have it asymptomatically are infectious. We have discovered more about asymptomatic transmission, but there is still considerable uncertainty as to the proportion and infectiousness of cases that are asymptomatic.
We have learned that COVID-19 has had a disproportionate effect on people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds and we are determined to take the right steps to protect them and minimise risks. Following the findings of the Public Health England reports published on June 2nd, the Equalities Minister – supported by the Race Disparity Unit – is doing vital work to tackle these disparities and protect our most vulnerable communities from the impact of the virus. We are working to understand the key drivers of the disparities identified and the relationships between the different risk factors. We must reduce the disparity in health outcomes that some BAME communities experience in this country.
At the beginning of the outbreak, those who were identified as clinically extremely vulnerable received a letter from their GP or hospital specialist advising them to shield. GP’s and hospital specialists involved in an individual’s care had the discretion to add individual patients to the list where they felt it was appropriate based on clinical assessments of individual needs. The latest epidemiological data from the ONS COVID-19 Infection Survey shows that the chance of encountering coronavirus in the community has continued to decline and so shielding measures are being paused. As our understanding of the virus grows, we are working with Oxford University to develop a more nuanced risk assessment approach, which we hope will be ready by the Autumn.
NHS Test and Trace
Our ability to test and trace for COVID-19 is critical if we are to tackle transmission in the community. We have bolstered the delivery of our Test and Trace programme with the appointment of Baroness Harding, who continues to provide clear leadership, facilitating the expansion of the programme and the rapid deployment of test and trace capacity. We have considered WHO recommendations and reviewed international best practice to inform our approach in the UK. We moved to targeted contact tracing once the delay phase began. One of the biggest innovations we have made is the pioneering of mass home-testing. Home testing enables anyone who can’t get to a testing site, to take a test in their own home.
As we continue to strengthen the effectiveness of the NHS Test and Trace service, we are enhancing backward contact tracing. This will form an increasingly important part of our strategy for controlling the spread of the virus as the rate of infection reduces. By extending the period of time for which we ask people for information on places they have been and activities they have engaged in, we can identify common locations and potentially undetected transmission chains. This will help us to identify more people who may have been unknowingly exposed to the virus.
Adult Social Care
Keeping people safe throughout this period, especially society’s most vulnerable, is the Government’s top priority. Adult social care is a devolved system, which allows flexibility to meet local needs, but has presented challenges for national co-ordination of the COVID-19 response. The DHSC has published a range of guidance tailored to care homes and care providers, domiciliary care, unpaid carers and Local Authorities on how to continue to safely provide care. Our guidance has, quite rightly, altered over time as our scientific understanding of the virus grows and, with it, our ability to combat it. We will continue to work with the sector as well as PHE, NHSE, CQC and MHCLG to develop necessary guidance and update existing guidance.
The Social Care Sector COVID-19 Support Taskforce chaired by David Pearson has been established to deliver two packages of support, the Social Care Action Plan and the Care Homes Intensive Support Package, which will help reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission in the sector. Both packages will improve coordination across the sector and provide the resources needed to continue responding to COVID-19.
On 15 May we published details of the £600 million Infection Control Fund for Adult Social Care, to support adult social care providers in England in reducing the rate of transmission in and between care homes, and to support wider workforce resilience. This funding can be used for minimising the movement of staff to reduce the risk of asymptomatic transmission of the virus and ensuring staff do not lose out on wages in doing so.
PPE
In April, I announced an online portal was being developed to deliver PPE to primary and social care sectors. The portal and the logistics behind it are thanks to a partnership with eBay UK, Volo, Clipper, Royal Mail and Unipart. The partnership that delivered the PPE Portal has been astounding, and eBay’s experience in delivering IT projects has been invaluable with them building the Portal in a matter of weeks. We now have over 20,000 providers invited to use the Portal.
We have been reviewing the impact of increased demand on the supply chains of medical products during a difficult Winter season. This Government continues to best prepare for this scenario, including mitigations we can put in place, from stockpiling to boosting the domestic production of PPE.
Therapeutics and Vaccines
The government is supporting a wide range of therapeutics research and innovative medicine. From the beginning we have focused on undertaking robust clinical research, which enables us to take the proper evidenced-based decisions backed by rigorous science to improve the care of UK patients. On NHS services, there has been a significant push to deliver virtual outpatient appointments, to continue to deliver a quality outpatient service.
The research effort has recruited significant numbers of patients and greatly expanded our understanding on this new disease. On 16 June the UK Government-funded RECOVERY trial, the world’s largest COVID-19 clinical trial, announced that dexamethasone was the first treatment in the world shown to reduce the risk of mortality in hospitalised COVID-19 patients requiring oxygen or ventilation. On the same day as these results were announced, NHS England issued an alert to all NHS Trusts that dexamethasone would be considered as standard of care with immediate effect and the treatment was available to patients around the UK who need it. The UK has enough dexamethasone to treat over 200,000 COVID-19 patients.
There is already progress on potential vaccines, with clinical trials in humans underway at the University of Oxford and at Imperial College, London. We’ve fully funded the Oxford clinical trials, to the cost of £20 million and human clinical trials started on 23 April. We have now committed £65.5 million to scale up manufacturing to population level doses. We have also provided Imperial College with £22.5 million to allow their vaccine to enter human trials.
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