Oral Answers to Questions

Catherine West Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I will look into the individual case that my hon. Friend has raised, but I think patients recognise that sometimes they need to travel further for the most specialist care, and can receive better care if they do so. However, the way in which what we are doing will help my hon. Friend’s constituents, and other people with cancer, is not just about consultants and junior doctors working at the weekends; it is about seven-day diagnostic tests, which will enable us to get the answers back much more quickly and catch cancers earlier.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

4. What progress his Department has made in introducing a cap on care costs.

[The Minister for Community and Social Care (Alistair Burt)]

We have introduced primary legislation and consulted on draft regulations to introduce the care cap. Following the decision to delay implementation until April 2020, we will use the additional time to improve the policy in the light of feedback from stakeholders.

[Catherine West]

Let me first declare an interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

May I ask what assistance the Department is offering local authorities which are currently cash-strapped so that they can implement new minimum wage regulation, which is very welcome, in order to provide first-class social care?

[Alistair Burt]

It is not possible for me to talk about what may emerge from the spending round and settlement, but I can say to the hon. Lady that local authorities were given extra finance to implement the Care Act 2014. Some £5.3 billion is available to local authorities to work through the new integrated social care and NHS budget. So we are very conscious of the pressures on local authorities, which need the resources to provide the social care we all expect.