National Living Wage: Social Care

Baroness Greengross Excerpts

Thursday 5th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, the better care fund should be seen in a longer-term context of bringing together health and social care. The sustainability and transformation systems that are now being developed are the logical extension of the better care fund. Until prevention, healthcare and social care are brought together in a single budget, it will be extremely difficult to ensure the right allocation of resources.

[Baroness Greengross (CB)]

My Lords, if a huge number or even a fairly large number of care homes close down—we have been reading about this in the papers—there will be huge pressure on the NHS. That will be the effect. What plans have the Government put in place to deal with what might be a really big crisis in the NHS?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, the Government are putting £10 billion of new money into the NHS over the five-year period. Clearly, if there is a crisis in social care, that will have a direct knock-on effect on the NHS. We fully recognise that. The CQC has an obligation to keep a very close eye on this and to produce early warnings if a major, hard-to-replace provider looks as if it is getting into financial difficulty. It is an area that we are acutely conscious of and are keeping a very close eye on.