Social Care

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I thank the noble Lord for raising that point. I apologise again for the lateness of our response to the Lords committee. What I hope is now the final version is with me for approval, and I hope it will be provided very soon.

On the Green Paper, we all want more integration between health and social care. We know that is important for the people who are increasingly using those services who are in older age, have comorbidities and are moving in and out of different settings of the time. Social care is paid for on a different basis from the NHS. That is critical. We have to get a sustainable financial basis on which we distribute social care while thinking about how it interacts with the health service. The Green Paper is trying to crack a nut that, frankly, has eluded Governments for the last 20 years.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for referring to Nascot Lawn. I was not going to raise it today because that is about care for severely disabled children under 18, but I want to pick up on my noble friend’s point about adult care for people with disabilities and long-term conditions. As we know, their care needs are very different from end-of-life needs. Both the current social care system and the Dilnot proposals were focused on end-of-life care, so I welcome the parallel work stream, but will it operate to exactly the same timescale and report back?

I have a further question on housing. Your Lordships’ House will remember that the recommendations of the Lords Select Committee on the Equality Act 2010 and Disability included a whole chapter on housing. It is not just about the disabled facilities grant, which is important; it is also about Building Regulations ensuring that enough of our homes are built so that, as people age and their needs change, houses can be adapted easily if need be. Will that recommendation be forwarded to the group to look at?

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

Once again, I thank the noble Baroness for raising this issue and I am pleased that she supports the parallel work stream. I will come back to her with details on the timing—I am afraid that I do not have those with me today—but I stress the importance given to it and the fact that it is reporting to the inter-ministerial group is significant.

The noble Baroness’s question on housing goes slightly beyond my remit. I know that building regs have changed over time to encourage more homes to be built, but I will have to come back to her with more details on that point.