When faced with a crisis, whatever it may be, we all want to feel protected, supported and our needs understood.

When it became apparent that coronavirus was a real and present danger to our communities – and that our health and care workers were on the frontline of the battle to contain it – we knew effective protection for these amazing people would be among our top priorities.

The provision and distribution of personal protective equipment (PPE) has been a vital part of our strategy to keep care staff safe – especially those in care homes and other restricted care settings, where close contact with potentially infected residents can’t always be avoided.

After some initial teething problems, now remedied by the Winter Plan and the subsequent PPE strategy, we can be confident each and every care home has access to free equipment when they need it at least until March 2021. The PPE portal, piloted in April, has played a critical role in facilitating this.

By the end of November, over 20,000 adult social care providers (both residential and domiciliary) had registered with the portal.

Moreover, over 1000 children’s social care providers have registered. I can assure you our overriding priority this winter and during the pandemic is to prevent and reduce infections in order to save more lives. That means continuing to get PPE to the frontline, across the nation.

Read more from https://socialcare.blog.gov.uk/2020/12/18/ppe-portal-power/