Adult Social Care Funding
Debate between Cheryl Gillan and Steve Brine(7 years, 5 months ago)
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Steve Brine
I said at the very start of my response, did I not, that we should salute the 1.4 million people who work in this country’s social care sector? We should also salute the families who support people who are in and out of care settings all the time. I did also say—I am grateful that the hon. Lady responded to this—that it does not surprise me that the caring side of the sector came out as one of the good bits in the report.
The hon. Lady spoke about keeping people out of the emergency setting, and that is absolutely what the STP process is about. We are one NHS, and there is one public sector. This is about the NHS getting delayed transfers of care right, but it is also about the work of local government. The STP process works at upper tier authority level as well as across the NHS—in my area of Hampshire, the NHS is working closely with Hampshire County Council—to deliver a one-system response. She is absolutely right, as usual, to point that out.
Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)
It is absolutely vital that we improve adult services that are failing and falling behind, but let us not lose sight of the fact that most adult social services are of high quality and many are improving. Nearly four out of five of our adult services are good or outstanding. We all know that there is a looming crisis in social care, which is why the Chancellor announced further investment of £2 billion in this area. Is that investment starting to show some results?
Steve Brine
Yes, we believe it is. The CQC has completed its ratings, and the proportion of providers rated good or outstanding increased to 79% by July 2016; the previous figure was 72%. It is also worth noting the CQC’s statement that 81% of services rated inadequate improved their overall rating following re-inspection. Obviously, there is a challenging element to the report. As I have said, we do not hide from that or shirk it—nor should we—and that is why we set up the inspection regime. It would not be right or fair to people who work in or rely on the sector to say that everything is going to hell in a handcart, because I do not believe that it is.