Northamptonshire care homes received £2.5m so far to help combat Covid-19

More than 200 care homes in the county have received funding under the infection control fund given to the local authorities by government
Care homes in Northants have been badly it by Covid-19 with 85 of the 250 suffering an outbreak.Care homes in Northants have been badly it by Covid-19 with 85 of the 250 suffering an outbreak.
Care homes in Northants have been badly it by Covid-19 with 85 of the 250 suffering an outbreak.

More than £2.5 million has been paid out to 200 Northamptonshire care homes to help them combat Covid-19.

As part of the government’s £600 million infection control fund, Northamptonshire County Council was allocated £8 million to help care homes try and stamp out the virus within its corridors and protect residents.

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The authority now says that £2,648,819 has been paid out to 228 care homes, which is 91 per cent of those registered on the Care Quality Commission’s list.

Altogether 85 of the 250 care homes in the county have suffered an outbreak of the virus and at least 127 care home residents have died since the contagion began.

The council received half of the £8 million in May with the rest to come next month. Three quarters of the grant has to be handed over to CQC registered care home providers and is allocated on the number of beds the home has.

The remaining quarter can be used at the council’s discretion for care home or domiciliary care and to provide wider workforce support and infection control.

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A spokesman for Northamptonshire County Council said: “There are conditions on when and how the council pays and accountability on how it’s used.

– It is only paid to providers who completed a national care home tracker by 26th May and commit to doing so consistently. This tracker includes details like their staff workforce movements/absence, testing, infection control and PPE etc. If they don’t continue to complete the tracker then they will not receive a second payment

– Although the council pays the first instalment in advance, providers have to provide evidence that they are using the funds for the required grant purpose – reduction of workforce movement and infection control

– The council is responsible for validating it has been used for those purposes and not fraudulently claimed and it is liable for any incorrect payments which will be clawed back by government – therefore if at any point the authority reasonably believes that the funding is not being used for infection control purposes, we have to withhold further payments until satisfied that is not the case

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– The council has to recover any money it believes has not been used in line with the grant

Care homes have to return any unused funding if their records show there is any.”

Nationally a quarter of deaths so far from Covid-19 have happened in care homes.