Social Care Funding

Janet Daby Excerpts

Wednesday 17th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I will come on to the proposed funding reforms. My hon. Friend is right that there is support for reform across the House, but there is support for different types of reform in different parts of the House. I respect the shadow Opposition spokeswoman, but it would help if she could bring more clarity to the Opposition’s position, updating the proposal that they put forward in 2010, which I will come on to in some detail. That will help if they want to genuinely contribute to this debate.

Of course, social care is not only a challenge of old age. The number of people of working age with care needs is also growing. Many of us in this House will know the pain and difficulty of helping a loved one who needs constant care or faces dementia. Such pressures bring long-term challenges, and we must ensure that both the NHS and our social care system can respond to the challenges we face.

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

There is an acute nursing shortage in this country. According to the CQC, nursing homes may need to re-register as residential homes, possibly due to the difficulty in recruiting enough nurses, which would have disastrous consequences for some of the country’s most vulnerable old people. With the looming prospect that Brexit will further restrict our ability to recruit nurses from Europe with the necessary skills and talent, does the Secretary of State agree that he needs to do everything he can to ensure that the nursing home sector does not collapse?