Councillors are being asked to approve the continued supply of emergency personal protective equipment (PPE) for external bodies for the foreseeable future.
A special meeting of Brighton and Hove City Council’s Policy and Resources Committee, scheduled for Friday (14 August), is expected to support the provision of free PPE for individual carers and personal assistants.
The council is expected to charge care organisations, childcare and education settings and other organisations for emergency supplies during the coronavirus crisis.
Since March the Sussex Resilience Forum – a partnership involving the emergency services, local authorities, health services and the voluntary sector – has supplied enough PPE to support organisations outside the council.
But the forum has said that the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government might stop providing PPE to councils via local resilience forums.
The council has committed more than £2 million to supply PPE and meet demand over and above the supplies provided by the local resilience forum, such as surface wipes.
And it is facing financial pressure because continuing PPE requirements and reduced income means that the £18.7 million in covid-19 emergency response funds from the government only partly covers the financial pressure.
A report to the committee said: “It is therefore imperative the council minimises costs where possible to protect the council’s financial resilience.
“The recommendation of this report proposes to provide external organisations with PPE supplies in an emergency and on a short-term basis.
“Any charges will be based on cost recovery only and therefore this proposal is expected to be cost-neutral.”
The council is committing £1,200 a week to provide free PPE to individual personal assistants and unpaid carers until it can work out a way to charge those who can pay.
At the moment the council spends £272,220 a month on PPE.
Its most significant outlay is for water-resistant face masks at 56p each or £89,600 a month for 160,000.
The next highest bill is £49,280 a month for 4,000 specialist fine particle resistant masks at £12.32 each.
Hand sanitiser is available on the open market but the council is receiving requests for its stock.
Not all care homes in the city have applied for support.
Out of 163 homes registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC), 102 have asked for help.
The national PPE “portal” is providing supplies in an emergency for small CQC-registered care homes with 24 or fewer beds and care providers with 99 or fewer clients.
The Special Policy and Resources Committee “virtual” meeting is due to start at 1pm on Friday (14 August).
