Asked by: Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the announced National Living Wage from April 2016, what additional costs there will be in the next 12 months for social care providers.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
The impact of the new National Living Wage on local authority finances will be considered during the Spending Review as part of an overall assessment of spending pressures on local authorities.
Asked by: Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to ensure provision of social care for non self-pay service users in the event of systemic failure in the social care market.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
It is important that there is a vibrant market of local care and support providers offering a choice of high quality services that are able to adapt over time to meet changing needs.
The Care Act introduces new duties on local authorities to promote their local market, with a particular focus on quality, diversity and sustainability. The Government recognises that local authorities’ own commissioning is likely to be their most important tool for facilitating their markets. The Government has worked with the Local Government Association and the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) to co-produce material to help local authorities promote their local markets and improve their own commissioning.
Ultimately, local authorities remain locally accountable for how their budgets are allocated, including spend on care and support. However, the Care Act is clear that prices agreed with care providers will have to reflect the new duties outlined above in relation to the promotion of sustainability of the overall market. The Government recently published statutory guidance setting out how local authorities should meet these new duties when commissioning, including the consideration of the actual costs of care and support when negotiating fee levels. A copy of the guidance is attached.
More widely, as in any market, provider exits and entries are inevitable. Where continuity of care is at risk because a provider’s business has failed, local authorities must temporarily step in to ensure an individual’s needs continue to be met, including the needs of both those that are self- and state-funded. In order to help local authorities respond to potential situations where a provider is particularly large or geographically concentrated, and where an individual local authority may struggle to carry out this duty on its own, the Government has created a new market oversight function which will be carried out by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). The CQC will act to oversee the finance of specified providers with a view to providing local authorities with early warning of financial failure and to ensure effective contingency plans can be put in place.
The Government has also commissioned the ADASS to publish guidance for local authorities to assist them in developing contingency plans for managing provider failure which should be available by summer 2015.
Asked by: Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the effect of planned reductions in social care budgets for 2015–16 on local authorities and social care providers.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
The Department monitors local authority budget data and expenditure on adult social care as routine. We will continue to work closely with local government and providers to understand current and future funding requirements to support decisions relating to the upcoming Spending Review.
This year, the Better Care Fund will provide £5.3 billion of investment in better integrated care, based on joint plans that have been developed locally and putting resources where the local NHS and social services think it is needed. Social care protection is a national condition of the Better Care Fund.
Asked by: Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the pilot schemes on discharge from hospital of the homeless.
Answered by Earl Howe - Deputy Leader of the House of Lords
We have commissioned Homeless Link to undertake an evaluation of the Homeless Hospital Discharge Fund and expect to receive a full report in September.