Asked by: Baroness Cavendish of Little Venice (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government which (1) benefits, and (2) programmes, provide adult social care to adults of pension age, including (a) caseload by programme, and (b) total expenditure by programme.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Adult social care is a devolved service and local authorities are responsible for ensuring that people with eligible needs receive support. By the end of 2022/23, 629,050 people were accessing long-term support from councils in England to meet their care needs, 370,110 of whom were people aged 65 years old or over.
Total public spending on adult social care was £22.9 billion in 2022/23. This spend is supported by local government revenue and central government grant, not from the benefits system. Since autumn 2022, the Government has made available up to £8.1 billion in additional funding to support adult social care and discharge over 2023/24 and 2024/25.
Asked by: Baroness Cavendish of Little Venice (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what proportion of the budget of NHS Continuing Healthcare and NHS funded Nursing Care is spent on pensioners.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England does not collect data on how much NHS Continuing Healthcare (CHC) and National Health Service-funded Nursing Care funding is spent on ‘pensioners’, defined here as someone who is in receipt of a pension. Determination of CHC eligibility is based on a comprehensive assessment of care needs rather than any specific medical condition, disease or diagnosis.
Asked by: Baroness Cavendish of Little Venice (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many international nurses NHS Trusts have recruited in the past 12 months; and of those, how many have been permitted to work.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
This information is not collected centrally.
Asked by: Baroness Cavendish of Little Venice (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many of the international nurses who arrived in the UK in the past 12 months have had an Objective Structured Clinical Examination; and how many have passed that examination.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The information is not held in the format requested. The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) is the independent regulator of nurses and midwives in the United Kingdom and nursing associates in England. It sets the standards that registrants must meet to demonstrate that they are capable of practising safely and effectively in those professions.
Information on the number of professionals sitting and passing the Objective Structured Clinical Examination is published on the NMC’s website in an online-only format.
Asked by: Baroness Cavendish of Little Venice (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they will take to establish a long-term workforce strategy for the NHS and social care; and what plans they have to present an annual report to both Houses on (1) health, and (2) care.
Answered by Lord Kamall
In July 2021, we commissioned Health Education England (HEE) to review long term strategic trends for the health and social care workforce. This will ensure we have the right, skills, values and behaviours across NHS and social care for the next 15 years. This will also include registered professionals working in social care.
The Health and Care Bill includes a statutory duty on the Secretary of State to produce a report describing the system in place for assessing and meeting the workforce needs of the health system in England. NHS England and HEE must assist in the preparation of this report if requested to do so by the Secretary of State. This report is required to be published at a minimum of every five years.
The Government recently announced at least £500 million over three years to support and develop the social care workforce, fund initiatives to support mental health and wellbeing and introduce further reforms to improve recruitment. We will work with care users, providers and other partners to develop more detail on the plans for reform of adult social care and publish further detail in a white paper for reform later this year.