Care Homes: Severely Disabled People

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Markham (Con)]

My Lords, the 200,000 extra care places that this funding provides is a solid example of an expansion of supply, and I hope all noble Lords agree that that is a substantial number. I hope they also agree with the work we are doing to recruit from overseas to increase the workforce in this sector, which is indeed increasing. Areas such as these show that we are committed to expanding the supply, and we are seeing that rewarded in the increase in the last few months.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, has my noble friend yet had an opportunity to read the Economic Affairs Committee report on social care, a “national scandal”, which points out that in care homes in both the private and the charity sectors, people who pay their own costs subsidise others to the tune of 40%? The local authority rates are simply unsustainable, and this issue is therefore urgent and needs to be addressed. Simply talking about inputs all of the time is no good; we need to see what is happening to the outputs, which is a tragedy.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

Funnily enough, the meeting on the sector’s financial health that I mentioned was precisely in response to the Question last week, so that I can make sure that proper work is being done in this space. I will not pretend to have the answers to that yet because, as my noble friend mentioned, a long-term review needs to be done. But rest assured that I am working on this.