A planned Amazon-style logistics system for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to aged care staff will not be available for at least another fortnight, the Housing and Communities Secretary, Robert Jenrick, has told a Government committee – with deaths in nursing homes set to rise by over 2,000.
Mr Jenrick says the system – contracted to Clipper Logistics at the end of Match – could take three more weeks to launch.
Aged care residents in the UK have been dying at a rate of 340 a day.
The country’s largest private operator HC-One revealed on Monday it has now lost 703 residents across its 350 homes – that’s a rate of two per home.
The Secretary told the committee he wanted the Clipper system to be brought online “as quickly as we possibly can” but it was still being piloted.
“We don’t want to start the system prematurely until we know that it works and can deliver a very secure supply of PPE to the care homes on demand. That will happen over the next two to three weeks," he said.
But the CEO of peak body, the National Care Forum, Vic Rayner, said the continued delay was “hugely problematic”.
“It was supposed to be ready in early April,” she said. “Eight weeks into this [crisis] and for organisations still to be thinking they don’t have enough PPE to last until the end of the week isn’t at all helpful. PPE is to protect staff and to stop the spread of the virus. You cannot do either if you don’t have the right PPE in place.”
Over 30% of the UK’s 11,300 aged care homes recording outbreaks of COVID-19.
