Health and Adult Social Care Reform

Ben Coleman Excerpts

Monday 6th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

May I suggest that we help each other by asking short questions—with short, punchy answers, I am sure? Ben Coleman will set a good example.

[Ben Coleman (Chelsea and Fulham) (Lab)]

Mr Speaker, I take that personally, in a positive way.

This is a very encouraging statement. It is great to start the new year with some good news and to be so clear that we are keeping our promises as a Government. It is also very good that we are taking the necessary time to create this cross-party consensus on social care while keeping the show so firmly on the road. Carers will be supported to carry out more health tasks, as they do already in my constituency with wound dressing and medicine management. The problem is they do not have any possibility of career progression. [Interruption.] I am sorry, Mr Speaker, I forgot your initial encouragement; I will bring this to a close.

Does the Secretary of State agree that as carers are encouraged to do more health tasks, they need proper opportunities for career progression even within the NHS, in collaboration with local authorities?

[Wes Streeting]

Brevity was not my hon. Friend’s new year’s resolution, but at your encouraging, Mr Speaker, it is mine. We will provide more training to care professionals to deliver a wider range of tasks in the home, making better use of their skills and the career progression that my hon. Friend describes. Crucially, that career progression must be in status and in pay. That is what we will work with the staff to deliver.