Social Care in England: Older People

Baroness Pitkeathley Excerpts

Monday 20th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I of course associate myself with the comments made by the noble Baroness and apologise for not saying so before. However, I am not going to sing in tribute.

Around 17% of the care workforce comes from abroad and some 7% of the total are from the EU. The key is to make sure that we have, as far as possible, a care system that attracts workers domestically. We are doing that through improving the training packages available and through better pay under the national living wage, which I mentioned.

[Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab)]

My Lords, we heard this morning that the domiciliary care scene is under pressure and many domiciliary care agencies are in fact not tendering for contracts. The care home sector is also under pressure. The people who are not giving up, as the Minister points out, are the family carers— 6 million of whom are picking up the pieces from an inadequate social care system. May I press him a little more on the carers strategy, please? It was due to be published last September. Has he a date yet?