Adult Social Care

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Wednesday 1st December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

We will commit a further £573 million per year to the disabled facilities grant between 2022-23 and 2024-25. We are also taking steps to ensure that the disabled facilities grant can benefit more people in need. We will consult on some of those steps in 2022.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

It has been two and a half years since the Prime Minister stood on the steps of Downing Street and promised to

“fix the crisis in social care once and for all with a clear plan we have prepared”.

I think we can all be forgiven for asking what on earth the Government have been doing during that two and a half years—a time when the social care crisis has got worse. Right now, more than 100,000 vacancies exist in adult social care. Care homes are refusing new admissions because of staff shortages. Providers are haemorrhaging staff to better-paid roles in hospitality, retail and distribution. The sector is on its knees as we head into the harshest winter in living memory.

The Minister’s statement today was completely tone-deaf on the scale of the crisis. Can she say, because it was not clear from the statement, how she expects the sector to get through the winter? What does she have to say to the families who are waiting right now for a care home place that simply does not exist under her Government’s failing social care system?

[Gillian Keegan]

The hon. Lady seems to be the only person in the whole world who has missed the global pandemic, but it occurred during the same period. To answer her specific question, she is absolutely right that there are pressures right now. There are pressures continually in the system, because there is always a need for growth every year, but right now the winter pressures are challenging. As we bounce back from the pandemic, everything is opening again and there is a lot of competition for labour—there are 1.2 million vacancies in the country.

We have invested £162.5 million, which is on its way—it has probably just landed in most councils’ bank accounts. That investment is there for short-term fixes, similarly to what we put in place for January to March this year, which was very successful; it brought forward 7.3 million extra hours and 39,000 new recruits. We have invested in that funding for the workforce, and we keep it under review—we get data every month through a capacity tracker system. We work closely with the sector and will continue to monitor its needs.