NHS Providers says hospitals were only asked to tests patients due to be discharged back into social care on 15 April.
"You're right to talk about… mid-April, when the capacity was there in the testing system to make sure that those going into care homes could be tested and indeed all care home staff," said the minister.
Labour has called for the prime minister to account for official figures showing 10,000"unexplained" excess deaths in care homes last month.The party's shadow social care minister Liz Kendall said the government needed to"get a grip of this crisis, implement a full strategy for supporting care homes, and give all social care services the priority and resources they deserve".
Niall Dickson, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents organisations across the healthcare sector, said care homes are where the"major battle with COVID-19 is now raging" and the sector had been"neglected" for too long. "When this is over, it will be time to tackle our collective failure to address social care, which is nothing short of a national disgrace", said Mr Dickson.
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