Kinship Carers
Debate between Janet Daby and Mark Pritchard(1 week, 4 days ago)
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Janet Daby
I am afraid that I need to make some progress.
I am pleased to confirm that the Government are supporting the delivery of 140 peer support groups across England. That is a vital service, giving kinship carers the opportunity to come together. It will provide peer-to-peer support, as well as offering them the opportunity to socialise with and meet other kinship carers, which will be a huge benefit. Alongside that, we are delivering a package of training and support for all kinship carers across England. Both those services provide much-needed additional support and offer guidance for kinship carers, because we recognise the early-years trauma and the other experiences of the children that they care for. They need support to enable them to do their best by the children they care for and love.
We are focused on improving support for children in kinship care. The role of the virtual school heads has been expanded and now includes championing the education, attendance and attainment of children in kinship care, ensuring that more children in kinship care receive the help they need to thrive at school. The renaming of the adoption and special guardianship support fund will rightly ensure that families are aware of the support to which they are entitled. It will incentivise local authorities and regional adoption agencies to make applications on behalf of kinship carers in need of therapeutic support, to ensure that those who can access the fund do so.
Keeping children safe is a key priority of the Government. In addition to our £44 million investment to support children in kinship care and foster care, £1.3 billion of new grant funding was announced for local government to deliver core services, of which £600 million is for social care, including children’s social care. I mention that to highlight some of the other areas to which the Government are entirely committed.
I will talk briefly about national kinship pay and leave. Kinship carers will benefit from additional support and flexibility from their employers to help them to balance work with providing the best possible care to the children they love. The Department for Education has published guidance for employers that sets out the best practice for supporting kinship carers at work, including how they can adapt internal policies, signpost existing entitlements and create a culture of support to best meet the needs of kinship carers.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin for raising this extremely important debate. I also thank those who have contributed, raising the profile of better support for kinship carers. That is a key priority for me and the Government. We want to continue to build on the great progress that we have begun and to do much more in this space.
Question put and agreed to.
Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)
I thank all hon. Members for their contributions, and I thank the Minister for speaking in back-to-back debates—absolutely fantastic. We move on to the next debate.
Future of the NHS
Debate between Janet Daby and Mark Pritchard(1 year, 1 month ago)
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This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Janet Daby
The Minister is nodding, so I take that as an indication that he is willing to do that, which is really good. I also implore him to consider that sickle cell is a long-life disease, a hidden disease, a disability, and very serious.
The disease, however, has not had the research funding that it really needs. Looking at people with cystic fibrosis and haemophilia, we that they have had so much more funding invested into medicines to improve the treatment of those illnesses. The National Institute for Health and Care Research funds research programmes, but sickle cell research is woefully inadequate compared with the diseases that I have already mentioned. According to the data produced by that organisation, approximately 18,000 people are living with sickle cell, compared with the 10,000 that are living with cystic fibrosis, but in 2017-18 over a million pounds more was spent on research for cystic fibrosis. In the present day, 2022-23, still over a million pounds more is being spent on research for cystic fibrosis compared with sickle cell. That is entirely unacceptable, especially when there are more people living with sickle cell. I do not wish to take away funding from other research, but I do want equality of funding. I am sure the Minister also wants this as well.
As I draw to a close, I have already mentioned that prevention has to be the ultimate way to help people live a good quality of life and to keep them out of hospital, and it also helps to take of care of the public purse. In conclusion, the NHS is a wonderful creation that has helped every single person in this Chamber, and indeed every single person in our country.
Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)
I am afraid that we are going to have to restrict the last two Back Bench contributions to five minutes each.