The government announced that there will be a further round of Infection Control and Testing fund monies to support care providers from July to September 2021. View guidance on the extension to the testing fund.
The fund brings together Infection Control and Testing monies and will be paid to providers in one instalment, for Norfolk this is a payment of £4.754m in total. The grant itself is split into:
ICF
52.5% and 17.5% share
The monies have been received by the Norfolk County Council and will be passed on to those providers who have met the criteria for grant conditions. This includes providers who are regularly completing the National Tracker and have returned the necessary Grant Agreement form. The payment date is currently planned for week commencing 9th August 2021.
The grant can be used to fund Infection Control measures between 1 July 2021 and 30 September 2021. Find out more about grant conditions.
30% share for local distribution
The proposals for the distribution of the 30% have now been approved following development in conjunction with NorCA. These proposals are that:
Following previous funding rounds, NCC has recognised the importance of providers having a direct contact to discuss concerns or queries with and has established a dedicated mailbox for this purpose. If you have anything ICF or Testing funding related that you wish to discuss please email infectioncontrol@norfolk.gov.uk.
Rapid Testing
70% share
The monies have been received by the Norfolk County Council and will be passed on to those providers who have met the criteria for grant conditions. This includes providers who are regularly completing the National Tracker and have returned the necessary Grant Agreement form. The payment date is currently planned for week commencing 9th August 2021.
The grant can be used to fund testing measures between 1 July 2021 and 30 September 2021. Find out more information on the Testing measures.
30% share for local distribution
The proposals for the distribution of the 30% have now been approved following development in conjunction with NorCA. These proposals are that:
The government announced that there will be a further round of Infection Control and Testing fund monies to support care providers from April to June 2021. Guidance on the fund can be found here.
The fund brings together Infection Control and Testing monies and will be paid to providers in one instalment, for Norfolk this is a payment of £6.394m in total. The grant itself is split into:
ICF
52.5% and 17.5% share
The monies have been received by the Norfolk County Council and will be passed on to those providers who have met the criteria for grant conditions. This includes providers who are regularly completing the National Tracker and have returned the necessary Grant Agreement form. The payment date is currently planned for week commencing 3rd May 2021.
The grant can be used to fund Infection Control measures between 1 April 2021 and 30 June 2021. More information on the Infection Control measures.
30% share for local distribution
The proposals for the distribution of the 30% have now been approved following development in conjunction with NorCA. These proposals are that:
Following Rounds 1 and 2 of the Infection Control Fund, NCC has recognised the importance of providers having a direct contact to discuss concerns or queries with and has established a dedicated mailbox for this purpose. If you have anything ICF related that you wish to discuss please do email infectioncontrol@norfolk.gov.uk
Rapid Testing
60% share
The monies have been received by the Norfolk County Council and will be passed on to those providers who have met the criteria for grant conditions. This includes providers who are regularly completing the National Tracker and have returned the necessary Grant Agreement form. The payment date is currently planned for week commencing 3rd May 2021.
The grant can be used to fund testing measures between 1 April 2021 and 30 June 2021.More information on the Testing measures.
40% share for local distribution
The proposals for the distribution of the 40% have now been approved following development in conjunction with NorCA. These proposals are that:
The government recently announced that there will be further funding to support care providers with workforce capacity from January to March 2021. See further details of the Workforce Capacity Fund via the GOV.UK website. Norfolk’s allocation of the funding is £2,089,339.
The Workforce Capacity Fund has been passed to the local authority and is in the process of being passported to providers. We will be allocating circa £1.5m to providers to support capacity issues and this will be split as follows:
The above funding is to support providers to deliver the following outcomes:
In addition to the above a discretionary fund of £172k has been set up for providers to claim against. Download the claim form. Please note that you will only need to complete the claim form to access this additional fund and not the aforementioned £83 per bed/service user.
The remaining funds have been used to set up an emergency agency staff bank to help providers with short-term needs and we have also strengthened the Quality Assurance Team to give improved access and support to providers. For further details about how to access the Agency Workforce Bank email qaprovidersassd@norfolk.gov.uk
Please note that the funds must be spent by 31 March 2021 but that they can be used for costs incurred between 16 January and 31 March 2021.
Your Rapid Testing Funding (RTF) spending monthly return should be completed along with your return for the Infection Control Fund return through the link below:
Deadline dates for returns:
The government announced in December that there will be further funding to support care providers from December to March 2021. Guidance on the Rapid Testing Funding can be found here.
The Rapid Testing Fund has been passed to the Local Authority in January and is in the process of being passported to providers. The grant itself is split into:
80% share
The first instalment has been received by the Norfolk County Council and is in the process of being passed on to those providers, within the 80% share, who have met the criteria for grant conditions. This includes providers who have completed the National Tracker (care homes). The first payment will be released w/c 1 February.
The deadline for providers to have submitted their completed Grant Agreement Form is Friday 29 January.
The grant can be used to fund Testing measures between 2 December 2020 and 31 March 2021. Find out more about grant conditions.
20% share for local distribution.
The proposals for the distribution of the 20% have now been approved following development in conjunction with NorCA. These proposals are that:
NCC has recognised the importance of providers having a direct contact to discuss concerns or queries with and has established a dedicated mailbox for this purpose. If you have anything either ICF or Rapid Testing Fund related that you wish to discuss please email infectioncontrol@norfolk.gov.uk.
Fund background
This is a £149m national grant, of which Norfolk will receive £3.067m. It was received by Norfolk County Council in mid- January. The 80% of the fund (£2.4m), is passed to Care Homes based on their CQC registered beds. In Norfolk there were 9,668 registered beds, with each bed attracting £253.00. The 20% (£0.6m) had no allocation method prescribed and has allowed Local Authorities to allocate it in the most appropriate manner for testing measures.
Further information about the grant and how to access it.
You can now submit your Infection Control Fund (ICF) spending monthly return for round two.
Deadline dates for returns:
The government announced that there will be a further round of Infection Control fund monies to support care providers from October to March 2021. Guidance on Infection Control Fund: round 2 can be found here.
The ICF is again being paid to local authorities over two equal instalments, for Norfolk this is a payment of £5.2m in each payment. The grant itself is split into:
80% share
The first instalment has been received by the Norfolk County Council and has been passed on to those providers, within the 80% share, who have met the criteria for grant conditions. This includes providers who have completed the National Tracker (care homes) or the CQC Homecare survey (community care providers). The first payment date is 28 October.
For those providers who haven’t yet completed the grant agreement form, the deadline for returning these has been extended until 9 November.
The grant can be used to fund Infection Control measures between 1 October 2020 and 31 March 2021. View a list of examples of ways in which providers can spend funding.
The second instalment is likely to be received and paid out to providers in December 2020. To receive the second instalment providers will need to be continuing to meet the grant conditions as set out in the national guidance.
20% share for local distribution - updated 16 December 2020
The proposals for the distribution of the 20% have now been approved following development in conjunction with NorCA. These proposals are that:
Norfolk County Council recently hosted a webinar for care providers on the Infection Control Fund. To see the slides and questions and answers from this webinar please click here.
Following Round 1 of the Infection Control Fund, NCC has recognised the importance of providers having a direct contact to discuss concerns or queries with and has established a dedicated mailbox for this purpose. If you have anything ICF related that you wish to discuss please do email infectioncontrol@norfolk.gov.uk
As you will recall the ICF is being paid to local authorities over two equal instalments, for Norfolk this is a payment of £6.2m in each payment. The grant itself was then split into:
In both instances you were required to complete a plan for the grant and return a signed grant agreement stating that certain conditions would be met. We are pleased to report that with both the 75% and 25% we have materially distributed the funding.
At the time of receiving the initial grant from Central government we were informed that the two instalments would be received by local authorities in May and July 2020. The second instalment has now been received and we will be aiming to get this out to providers over the next couple of weeks.
Please see below guidance on the process for claiming the next instalment of the grant.
We aim to complete the administration of this grant as light as possible. Where you have:
We will again make an automatic payment to you. Where we feel the above conditions have not been met, we will contact you in order for us to jointly resolve together.
We recognise that some providers did not want the ICF funding provided initially. We will assume for these providers that this also refers to instalment 2. Should you have changed your position in relation to instalment 2 please contact us at ssdpayments@norfolk.gov.uk at your earliest convenience to avoid missing out.
To clarify, in our letter of the 29 May we stated one of your actions as “Provide confirmation of the actual spending incurred to enable us to pay the second instalment in July – we will provide more detail of this before the end of June”. We have considered this and are confident that where you have supplied your expenditure plan, you will have indeed completed the relevant paperwork to meet this condition. We do however want to remind you that the whole grant needs to be spent by 23 September 2020 and a final statement certifying that you have spent the funding on those measures needs to be returned by that date. Unfortunately, any unused funding will need to be returned via Norfolk County Council to the Government.
The proposal for the distribution of the 25% has been developed in conjunction with NorCA. The funding provided will need to be used targeted at the infection control measures outlined by the Government and including PPE. The funds will be distributed as follows:
Care homes/supported living/housing with care and dom care/home support providers – We will provide a payment of £90 per registered bed/number of people supported for those providers that were included as part of instalment 1 claim.
For care homes the payment of the 25% will be made with the 75% payment (assuming the grant conditions of Instalment 1 have been met).
For supported living/housing with care and dom care/home support providers you will be sent a grant agreement form to be completed accepting the grant conditions for instalment 2.
We recognise that some providers did not want the ICF funding provided initially. We will assume for these providers that this also refers to instalment 2. Should you have changed your position in relation to instalment 2 please contact us at ssdpayments@norfolk.gov.uk at your earliest convenience to avoid missing out.
This is a £600m national grant, of which Norfolk will receive £12.4m. It is received in two equal instalments. For each instalment of £6.2m, 75% (£4.6m) is passed to Care Homes based on their CQC registered beds. In Norfolk there were 9,650 registered beds, with each bed attracting £481.34. The 25% (£1.5m) had no allocation method prescribed and has allowed Local Authorities to allocate it in the most appropriate manner for infection control measures.
The first instalment of grant was received by the Council in late May, and the 75% payment was made on 4 June 2020. The Council is finalising its process relating to the 25% and will look to release this shortly. The second instalment of the grant is due to the Council in July 2020.
Further information about the grant and how to access it
To find out about support on offer from Central Government and the New Anglia Growth Hub during the coronavirus outbreak see Support for Norfolk businesses.
We are offering extra support to care providers in the following ways.
We will support your cashflow through our payment approach:
This outlines our financial support to you in managing the additional costs you may be facing at this unprecedented time. This is part of a mutual aid approach which will recognise not only those costs but also the requirement to work differently to meet the ongoing care and support needs of people.
Central Government has recognised that local care providers will require additional financial support to maintain critical support services at this current time. As a result, we are offering a financial support package for adult social care providers.
The Care Workers Charity has set up a Covid-19 emergency Grant programme for currently employed care workers who must take time off work due to Covid-19 for either illness or self-isolation or for funeral costs. Applicants must work in role that is involved in or supports the provision of adult, elderly or disability care.
On 30 April the government announced that the NHS-funded nursing care rate is being increased to £183.92 from 1 April 2020. For more information see NHS-funded nursing care rate announced for 2020 to 2021.
