Hospital Beds: Social Care

Lord Turnberg Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Markham (Con)]

We are absolutely aware that we need long-term plans and forecasts. That is also one of the things that the healthcare workforce plan will take into account: it will look at exactly where the capacity needs to be on a regional basis going forward so that we have the right number of hospital beds and social care places for an elderly and growing demographic in terms of age groups.

[Lord Turnberg (Lab)]

My Lords, is it not the case that patients are stuck in hospital because social care staff are leaving in droves? They are leaving because they are not respected, not given a career and not paid sufficiently. Should we not be doing something about retaining these vital social care staff?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

The number of care workers is key to all this and I delighted to say that the latest data shows that we are back to the levels of April 2021. Too many people have left, but we have managed to fill the gaps with the international recruitment fund and other measures. We all agree that we need to progress that further, but we are now making the increases that are needed in this space.