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Adult Care ServicesDirector: Chris BadgerManagement BoardAdult Care ServicesHertfordshire County CouncilTo:All CQC Regulated Community Careproviders in HertfordshireCounty HallHertford, Herts SG13 8DFTel:Email:01438 kDate:26th October 2021Dear Colleagues,Re: Adult Social Care Infection Control and Testing Fund –– Community Care ProvidersI would like to take this opportunity to, once again, thank you and your teams for your ongoingcommitment to Hertfordshire’s residents. The compassion, empathy and skills shown by yourteams have shone through in what has been the most challenging time. We, at the CountyCouncil, continue to try to do everything we can to support you as best we can to enable youto continue to help us to protect and support as many people as possible.On, 21st October the government announced a further 388m of funding for Adult Social CareInfection Control and Testing, to continue supporting care providers to reduce transmission,increase Covid-19 and flu vaccine uptake and enabling close contact visiting, these fundingstreams have been extended until 31st March 2022. We have now received the guidance forthis funding and as with other funding streams this has been provided with formal grantconditions for both local authorities and care homes and allow us to secure our share of theadditional 388m national grant.Hertfordshire County Council is obliged to comply with the various provisions and conditionsas set out in the Adult Social Care Infection Control and Testing Fund: local authority circularand the accompanying guidance. As a recipient of the grant, you will also be obliged to complywith the same provisions and conditions (as if they were set out in full in the guidance) and Iwould advise you to read them on the HCPA website, and be confident you can comply. I haveset out some of the key considerations in the remainder of this letter.I am now in a position to be able to invite community care providers to claim their allocation ofthe Adult Social Care Infection Control and Testing Fund. The formal grant conditions havechanged but the reporting requirements remain unchanged and I have asked HCPA to lodgea copy of the government letters and grant conditions on their website atwww.hcpa.info/Covid-19. The grant will be paid in one instalment for Infection Control and oneinstalment for Rapid Testing and will be available as soon as we receive your eligible claim.For your information I have included the conditions in an Appendix to this letter.1

Claiming the Adult Social Care Infection Control and Testing FundThe government funding has three elements covering financial support for Infection Control,Testing and Vaccines and is paid to us in two tranches of 60% in October followed by 40% inJanuary 2022. To make the process slightly simpler we have combined the IPC and Vaccineelements together so that we only have two elements of funding. As a result, this funding willbe paid in two instalments for each element of the funding (two for ICF (incl. vaccine) and twofor Testing) and both can be used to cover expenditure from 1st October 2021 and 31st March2022. All funding must be spent by 31st March 2022, and any funding that remains unspent atthis point will need to be returned to DHSC.This means that I am now in a position to invite CQC registered community care providers inthe county to immediately invoice Hertfordshire County Council for the funding allocationsapplicable to your service as set out in the tables belowIPC & VaccineHomecareFlexicareSupported LivingTestingHomecareFlexicareSupported Living1stinstalmentClaim NowPer Person Supported 120.00Per Person Supported 120.00Per Person Supported 279.002ndTotalinstalmentClaim Jan 22 80.00 200.00 80.00 200.00 186.00 465.001stinstalmentClaim NowPer Person Supported 30.00Per Person Supported 150.00Per Person Supported 150.002ndTotalinstalmentClaim Jan 22 20.00 50.00 100.00 250.00 100.00 250.00Basis of AllocationBasis of AllocationPlease send two invoices, one for ICF incl. vaccine and one for Testing Fund now. Invoicesshould be sent to ACS.CarePayments@hertfordshire.gov.uk and then two more invoices inJanuary 2022 again one for ICF incl. vaccine and one for Testing Fund.The four conditions to receive this funding are:1. That the funds are to be spent on Adult Social Care Infection Control and Testing– inline with the grant conditions summarised in Appendix 1 below2. That care providers must have completed the Capacity Tracker at least twice (2consecutive weeks) and continue to complete the NHS Capacity Tracker at leastweekly from 1st October 2021 and commit to continue to do so weekly until 31st March2022.3. That care providers must continue to complete the ICF Spend Tracker (attached) andreturn it on a monthly basis (15th of each month) toACS.CarePayments@hertfordshire.gov.uk.4. The requirements of the grant will need to be met before the 2nd tranche can bereleased.I encourage you to apply for your funding entitlement now.2

Clarification on the use of the Infection Control and Testing Fund GrantsThe guidance that accompanies the grant allocations details precisely what is meant by‘infection control’. This is largely about the additional staffing costs and any associatedaccommodation or transport costs incurred because of measures put in place by care providersto prevent transmission of the virus between care homes and the community through staff. Thegrant conditions have also been extended to cover the additional staff costs associated withvaccinations and testing. The guidance states:“The purpose of this fund is to provide support to adult social care providers (including thosewith whom the local authority does not have a contract) to: (1) reduce the rate of COVID-19transmission within and between care settings through effective infection prevention and controlpractices and increase COVID-19 and flu vaccine uptake among staff and (2) conduct testing ofstaff and visitors in care settings to identify and isolate positive cases, and in order to enableclose contact visiting where possible”.Details of specific measures that the funding supports are included in Appendix 1, please readthem carefully as they have changed since the previous allocation of these funding streams.Preparing to claim for the Additional Allocation of Infection Control FundAs previously stated, the monitoring requirements for the grant require us to complete agovernment return, on how the funding is being spent, we are asking providers to complete theInfection Control Fund Spend Tracker. This need to be completed on a monthly basis andreturned each month by the 15th of the following month. This tracker will detail the proposedspending of the grant and show actual spend to date. Completion and return of the spendtracker will be required in order to ensure that we do not need to reclaim any of the fundingallocation from you. If you cannot demonstrate that you have spent the funding allocationtotals on the measures listed, do not submit a claim until you can.Actions for you if you have received this letter:1. Today: please ensure you continue to complete the NHS Capacity Tracker on a weeklybasis2. Today: claim your allocation of the infection control incl. vaccine fund, please do so byinvoicing HCC for the relevant per person supported toacs.carepayments@hertfordshire.gov.uk3. Today: claim your allocation of the testing fund (if applicable), please do so by invoicingHCC for the relevant amount per person supported toacs.carepayments@hertfordshire.gov.uk4. Arrange to complete the ICF spend tracker and return it to us by the 15th each month,send your completed spend trackers to acs.carepayments@hertfordshire.gov.uk :5. January 2022: claim your second allocations of the infection control incl. vaccine fundand the testing fund by sending two separate invoices toacs.carepayments@hertfordshire.gov.uk6. By the 15th April 2022, please send one further completed copy of the ICF SpendTracker stating how you have spent the total allocation of the Infection Control Fundand Rapid Test Fund in line with grant conditions toacs.carepayments@hertfordshire.gov.uk :3

Support available to youWe realise these grants have been announced at different times and this can lead to confusionabout how and when to claim. Our dedicated provider support hotline hosted by HCPA andACS commissioners will be able to help you. The hotline can answer queries for allorganisations that support people with care needs (phone number – 01707 708 108 orassistance@hcpa.co.uk).My thanks again to you and your staff teams for your continued work during this pandemic.Yours faithfully,Chris BadgerDirector of Adult Care Services4

APPENDIX 1 - Extract from Funding Guidance: Adult Social Care Infection Control andTesting Fund Grant ConditionsThe grant conditions specify what measures can be supported by the grant and these are shownbelow:“Local Authorities must ensure that . the grant is allocated to care homes on a ‘per bed’ and‘per user’ basis in order to support the following specific measures:For community care providersInfection Control FundProviders can use this funding to pay for the continuation of infection prevention and controlmeasures they may have already taken if they are in line with these measures: ensuring that staff who are isolating in line with government guidance receive their normalwages and do not lose income while doing so. It is important to note that self-isolationguidance for fully vaccinated and unvaccinated or partially vaccinated (not exempt) staffdiffers, as reflected below. At the time of issuing the grant circular, this includes:all staff with suspected symptoms of COVID-19 waiting for a testall staff members with a positive lateral flow test waiting for a PCR test resultall staff members for a period of 10 days following a positive PCR testany staff member unvaccinated or partially vaccinated (not exempt) identified as a contactof a COVID-19 case while isolating as advised by Test and Trace or organisationany staff member fully vaccinated that develops symptoms after being identified as acontact of a COVID-19 case and is therefore required to isolate while waiting for a testresult (if positive the above procedure applies)any staff member who is not required to self-isolate but is asked not to work, in line withgovernment guidancesteps to limit the number of different people from a home care provider providing care to aparticular individual or steps to enable staff to perform the duties of other teammembers/providers (including, but not limited to, district nurses, physiotherapists or socialworkers) to reduce the number of carers attending a particular individualmeeting additional costs associated with restricting workforce movement for infectionprevention and control purposes in line with any relevant guidance. This includes staffwho work on a part-time basis for multiple employers or in other care settings, particularlycare homes. This includes agency staff (the principle being that the fewer locations thatmembers of staff work in the better)Vaccine FundingThis funding has been made available to support the following measures: ensuring that staff who need to attend work or another location for the purposes ofbeing vaccinated for COVID-19 or flu are paid their usual wages to do soany costs associated with reaching a vaccination facility5