Recommendation COVID-M6.1: Pandemic Planning for Adult Social Care

The UK government, Scottish Government, Welsh Government and Northern Ireland Executive should each establish clear arrangements for pandemic planning in adult social care. Those arrangements should facilitate the production of pandemic plans for adult social care at the government, local and provider levels.

Plans at a government level should identify:

the roles and responsibilities of each government in relation to adult social care during a pandemic;
the requirements for local-level plans, including the roles and responsibilities of local authorities, Health and Social Care trusts, and health and social care partnerships in producing those plans;
the requirements for provider-level plans;
how and by whom the adequacy of local and provider-level plans will be assured;
how bed capacity and staffing levels will be tracked in care homes and domiciliary care; and
how the adult social care sector will be represented in the pandemic planning of the four governments.

Government pandemic plans for adult social care should be regularly reviewed and tested as part of the pandemic response exercises recommended in the Inquiry’s Module 1 Report (Recommendation 6).