Ms Sandra Tuohy:

I thank Dr. MacLellan. To pick up on the crisis response teams, CRTs, in the context of nursing homes, the Deputy asked what will happen in future should there be a confirmed outbreak in a nursing home. I can confirm that the CRTs for our nursing homes comprise nurses, public health experts, PPE leads, infection prevention control experts, etc.

It is important to note the resilience investment we have put into private nursing homes through the temporary assistance payment scheme to ensure they are readily prepared should there be a new or further outbreak of Covid-19 in a facility. The role of the crisis response team is to support the resilience of the private nursing home sector where it can in providing the expertise which those facilities may be unable to resource themselves. That will continue as per the expert panel report and those teams will remain in place for as long as we need to have them in place.