Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Helen Whately and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 11th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately]

My right hon. Friend is right. We have some good news: Skills for Care data shows that home care job vacancies are falling—something I hear when I speak to home care providers. Looking ahead to next winter, I want every local authority to have enough home care on hand. That is why I emphasised the importance of home care when we distributed £600 million of discharge funding to local councils and NHS organisations in April. We are asking all local authorities to plan ahead and book enough home care in advance for this coming winter.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Is this not the very day to thank our care workers up and down the country? So many families depend on those people who toil away, day by day, visiting houses, often not being paid in between their visits. Could we look closely at recruitment and the agencies involved? Let us get real pay for care workers up, now.

[Helen Whately]

I think that every day is a good day to thank our care workers for their skills, compassion and hard work. We gave social care a record funding settlement of up to £7.5 billion in the autumn statement, which is being used to help local authorities increase the fees that they pay to care providers, in turn enabling care providers to pay their workforce better. That is going hand in hand with extra funding to support discharge into social care this winter and our reforms for the care workforce.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Helen Whately and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 6th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

When will the new Health team wake up to the fact that many of the things that we have discussed this morning—but particularly social care—will be solved only by treating local authorities as friends, allies and partners, rather than the enemy? Please can we have action to make local authorities full partners in delivering every sort of care?

[Helen Whately]

After hearing the hon. Member’s point, I should think that he therefore welcomes the fact that we have set up integrated care systems, which bring together health and social care. The £500 million discharge fund that I have mentioned is allocated to local areas to be pooled into the better care fund and spent jointly between local authorities and the NHS. Funding is an important part of this. In the autumn statement, social care received a historic funding settlement of £7.5 billion over the next two years. That is important, as well as ensuring that the NHS and local authorities work together hand in hand.