Ms Anne O'Connor:

Regarding the congregated settings, we have been working since this started to examine the facilities we have in terms of the number of residents and the number of staff. As we previously mentioned about residential care, it is not just nursing homes. The mental health facilities and disability settings are also quite complex because we have houses and settings that are quite small with one, two or three residents. We have been working on the de-congregation of disability settings for a number of years, but we still have mental health facilities and disability settings where we have a small congregated setting of six or more and sometimes up to ten and 12 people in a house. In some respects they have been more difficult to manage but our services have been working to examine how they can spread the residents out more. We have moved people and we have looked at different ways of accommodating them. We have been working very closely with many providers across the disability organisations. That is a challenge for us.

Across all three we have prioritised facilities that have an outbreak. In the first instance we have been testing facilities with an outbreak or with suspected cases. They have now been completed. As Mr. Reid said, we have tested all residents and staff across all our nursing homes. We have also tested all staff and residents in mental health facilities. In disability settings we are more than halfway there. Our focus for this week and next week is to conclude the testing, with a particular focus on ensuring we have addressed all facilities with a suspected outbreak.