Guidance

Adult Social Care Infection Control and Testing Fund: round 3

Sets out the measures that round 3 of the Infection Control and Testing Fund supports, including distribution of funds, conditions and reporting requirements.

Applies to England

Documents

Annex B: table of allocations

Annex D: assurance statement

Details

This guidance applies to the third round of the Infection Control and Testing Fund, which operated between October 2021 and March 2022. While this fund is no longer live, this guidance is preserved here for reference, and local authority reporting and assurance purposes.

As we move out of the emergency phase of the pandemic, infection prevention and control measures are a normal part of care providers’ responsibilities. Consequently, government will no longer be providing specific infection control and testing funding to the sector.

The Infection Control and Testing Fund has been extended, with an extra £388 million of funding from 1 October 2021 to 31 March 2022, to support the care sector to put in place crucial measures over the winter period. The purpose of this fund is to support adult social care providers (including those with whom the local authority does not have a contract) to:

  • reduce the rate of COVID-19 transmission within and between care settings through effective infection prevention and control practices and increase COVID-19 and flu vaccine uptake among staff
  • conduct testing of staff and visitors in care settings to identify and isolate positive cases, and in order to enable close contact visiting where possible

This brings the total ring-fenced funding for infection prevention and control to almost £1.75 billion and support for testing to almost £523 million in care settings.

This is the third round of the Infection Control and Testing Fund, which consolidated the Infection Control Fund and Rapid Testing Fund. It replaces the extended Infection Control and Testing Fund, which operated until 30 September 2021.

Updates to this page

Published 21 October 2021
Last updated 1 April 2022 + show all updates
  1. Added note outlining that the fund is now closed and that the guidance is being left as reference.

  2. Added updated reporting template for Annex E: reporting point 3, due 29 April 2022. Additional tab added to template for local authorities to report on their spend for the Omicron Support Fund.

  3. Updated the 'Annex E: local authority reporting template: reporting point 2, due 28 February 2022' to accommodate additional reporting for the Omicron Support Fund. Please see the guidance on the Adult Social Care Omicron Support Fund for further details.

  4. Added 2 new local authority reporting templates (annex E): 'reporting point 2, due 28 February 2022' and 'reporting point 3, due 29 April 2022'.

  5. First published.

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