Independent Commission on Adult Social Care

Baroness Barker Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

That is key in the mind of the noble Baroness, Lady Casey. We need to better join up the NHS and social care workforces. We will have a workforce plan for the NHS in spring this year and we are also investing in developing our social care workforce to professionalise and respect it.

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, last summer, local authorities came under pressure from the Department of Health to make people and their families go through assessments for continuing healthcare. From the speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, on 4 March, we now know that ICBs were at the same time employing private companies to make sure that their CHC payments went down. Will the Minister undertake to review all the applications for continuing healthcare to each ICB throughout this financial year and publish the results, showing how many were accepted, how many were accepted on appeal and how many families were sent on a runaround between the different agencies?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

What the noble Baroness describes—people getting the runaround—is, of course, unacceptable, and we have discussed this a number of times. I would be pleased to take back her suggestion to the Minister for Care, Stephen Kinnock.