Brexit: Health and Social Care Workforce

Baroness Verma Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate for the opportunity to say that we value every person who works in this country in those professions. We want to ensure that they are able to stay and contribute to the health and wealth of our country. I point out we are improving both recruitment and retention not only through increases in the living wage but through changes to the Agenda for Change pay deal concluded earlier this year. It will give 1 million staff at least a 3% pay increase by the end of 2018-19, and increase the starting salary of a nurse by nearly 10% to almost £25,000 by 2021.

[Baroness Verma (Con)]

My Lords, we all value the increased living wage—I speak as a provider of social care, and my interests are listed in the register. Will the Government ring fence the extra funding that they rightly put into social care, so that local authorities have to pass it on to providers? Providers have increased costs, and we cannot pass the money on to our care workers because we simply cannot afford it.

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I recognise the picture that my noble friend paints. It is of course incredibly important that money gets to the front line. I am sure that she is aware of this, but I would point out the operation of the Better Care Fund, which brings together local authority and NHS funding specifically to support social care provision. The amounts of money going through that have been increasing over recent years.