Ms Anne O'Connor:

Nursing homes would respond to infection anyway and have a regular supply of PPE. We became aware of significant challenges in the third week of March. It was well aired in the media that certain sites had struggled. At that time, we faced significant challenges in securing PPE in general. We were struggling to maintain a supply of some items. However, from late March through to early April, we significantly increased the supply of PPE. We had to prioritise supply across all sites. The area crisis management teams looked at all of the long-term residential care facilities, not just nursing homes, and what the supply requirement was. At the time, with the supply available, we had to prioritise and distribute PPE accordingly. The PPE supply going to residential care settings has now gone down to 31% of our PPE supply, whereas home support receives more than 32%. We supply a significant amount of PPE to hundreds of sites every day, including nursing homes and other long-term residential care facilities. There are different timelines for various facilities and areas, but, in the main, it was a challenge in late March.