Adult Social Care Funding

Christian Matheson Excerpts
Thursday 6th July 2017

(7 years, 5 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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John Bercow Portrait Mr Speaker
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In fact, he has got it.

Christian Matheson Portrait Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
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Did the Minister see the recent “Dispatches” programme featuring Bupa’s Crawfords Walk care home in my constituency, which had shocking levels of care? If large, well-known providers such as Bupa are caught putting profits before patient care, what can the Minister do to ensure that smaller, less high-profile providers are not doing the same?

Steve Brine Portrait Steve Brine
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I am sorry, but I did not see that programme. I shall look out for it on “watch again”. What we can do is put in place the toughest, most rigorous assessment and inspection regime, and that is what we have. That has come from this Secretary of State, not from the previous Government, who ducked the issue. What we can do is ensure that there is rigorous inspection to root out poorly performing services. That is the same in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency as it is in mine.

--- Later in debate ---
Steve Brine Portrait Steve Brine
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I thank the hon. Lady for her sensible question.

Christian Matheson Portrait Christian Matheson
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Mine was sensible.

Steve Brine Portrait Steve Brine
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They have not all been sensible, but yours was marginally more sensible.

As I said earlier, this is a rapidly growing sector and it is imperative that we get the right people into the right jobs. That is why it is so important to work with organisations such as Skills for Care to improve the level of skills, and people in this sector are expected to benefit from the national living wage.