Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Paul Burstow]

The hon. Lady, of course, offers no solution, merely a problem. I say to her that this Government identified £7.2 billion of additional investment to go into social care over the life of this Parliament, and those resources are being used creatively by some local authorities to protect front-line services. I urge her to applaud the authorities that are doing that and join me in condemning those that are cutting services despite being given the resources.

[Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

17. What steps he is taking to raise the professional standards of health care workers and care assistants.

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Paul Burstow)]

The Government have commissioned Skills for Health and Skills for Care to develop a code of conduct and minimum training standards for health care support workers and adult social care workers in England. That will inform the development of a system of assured voluntary registration for this group, which will be reviewed after it has been established for three years.

[Caroline Dinenage]

Have the Government made any assessment of the cost of rolling out mandatory regulations to health care support workers?

[Paul Burstow]

I will write to the hon. Lady with any specific details about the precise costs of rolling out such a register. I say to her that, for the first time, we have a Government who have decided that leaving unclarified the training requirements, standards and codes of conduct for health care assistants and care assistants is unacceptable. That is why we have commissioned this work. It will involve working with unions and other health care professionals to make sure we get those standards right, because we know that that is key to delivering dignified care.