Summer Health and Resilience
Debate between Alison Bennett and Yvette Cooper(1 week, 6 days ago)
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Yvette Cooper
I welcome my hon. Friend standing up for healthcare in his constituency. We are asking ICBs to look at the priority needs at different locations in each area, and it is vital that they look at pressures around rural areas and for every community in each area to ensure that all areas have the services they need.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
On social care, the Secretary of State pointed to the better care fund in her statement. I am glad that she recognises its importance, but why is she weakening provisions for pooled budgets, including the better care fund, in the Health Bill? Will she reconsider that?
Yvette Cooper
The better care fund is hugely important—I think it has £9 billion that is being jointly allocated. It is for the NHS and local authorities to work together on ensuring that we help to prevent people from entering hospital when they do not need to and that we have the proper services and co-ordination in place. We are also looking at the neighbourhood health programme, as that is another area in which we should look place by place at better co-ordination and ways of working. Those things are really important and will continue. As part of the response to Louise Casey’s review, we also want to look at how we can better bring together all these different approaches, because there is the same fundamental, core issue: whatever we have tried at different times, we are still not effectively co-ordinating health and social care, and we have to do that.
Immigration System
Debate between Alison Bennett and Yvette Cooper(1 year, 4 months ago)
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Yvette Cooper
One of the most important aspects of the White Paper will be the increase in the immigration skills charge, meaning that where employers are recruiting from abroad and there are shortage occupations, they will be contributing more to support skills and training here in the UK, including support for our young people to get the apprenticeships and jobs they need.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
The announcements today will deepen social care workforce shortages and risk harm to those who receive care. Have the Government considered the impacts on the sick, the frail and the elderly who rely on care workers to provide vital support? Will the Government publish an impact assessment setting out the effect of their reforms, and what will they do for the quality and availability of care and about the work of the Casey commission?
Yvette Cooper
As I pointed out in my statement, the number of care workers recruited from abroad has fallen since the initial big increase, and it is important to prevent such an increase taking place again, because we have seen significant exploitation. As a result of introducing higher standards, 39,000 care workers were displaced: they came here to do jobs that either did not exist or did not meet the right standards. We urge care providers to recruit from the pool of people who are already here.