Baroness Buscombe
Main Page: Baroness Buscombe (Conservative - Life peer)
Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen
Clearly not—that is not acceptable behaviour. Local authorities have an absolute duty to make sure that providers provide proper care for the people they are looking after, and there are strict regulations in place which are carried out by CQCs to make sure that that happens. If it does not, it is important for people to complain to the local authorities to make sure that proper care is given.
Baroness Buscombe (Con)
Will my noble friend not agree that the underlying problem here is the provision of sufficient funding to deliver social care? In that case, I was concerned by the reply from my noble friend Lord Prior of Brampton to a question that I asked on 5 May in relation to the better care fund, when he intimated that the better care fund will not be delivered until there is proper integration between health and social care. Could my noble friend assure me that that is not the case, and that the reality is that the better care fund will be delivered and is being delivered? If so, how much will be received into the social care system to enable providers to deliver care in the community in an efficient and effective way this year?
Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen
Well, my Lords, an added £1.5 billion is available for social care, and is going direct to councils, not the NHS. Social care protection is a national condition of the better care fund. Also, we must remember the social care precept, which allows councils to increase council tax by 2%. The national living wage was taken into account at the spending review, in which we gave an extra £3.56 billion a year. That is going to be backdated, allowing councils a four-year settlement, so they can plan their spending properly for the future.