Care Services: Elderly People

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

Wednesday 17th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, we recognise that there is a need to drive up standards in this area. More care workers will be trained, including an ambition to double the number of care apprenticeships by 2017. We have commissioned Skills for Health and Skills for Care to develop, before the end of January next year, a code of conduct and minimum training standards for healthcare support workers and adult social care workers in England. We expect that these will cover minimum training or induction standards for a range of support tasks, including personal care and other activities. Through the Health and Social Care Act 2012 we are creating a system of external quality assurance for voluntary registers.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that it is not just an issue about criminals, but an issue about the total shortage of care, which the previous question addressed very clearly? Does he not think that in general care and healthcare we are sadly missing the SENs, and is it not time to develop additional levels of training to fill the gaps both in care homes and the National Health Service?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, we need to focus on a mixture of things. As my noble friend rightly says, we need to look at workforce numbers and capacity. We need to look at minimum training standards, which I have referred to, and we need to look at quality. We are doing that by targeting for the first time personal assistants and their employers with greater support and learning through the Workforce Development Fund, which will help with recruitment and retention. We need better leadership because high-quality leadership is essential for the delivery of all the proposals in the care and support White Paper, and we are setting up a new leadership forum to bring together expertise. I should add that we need better intelligence on the ground as well, and that we shall see from the local Healthwatch organisations when they are established.