Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Laura Sandys and Paul Burstow

Tuesday 17th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)]

9. What steps he is taking to improve social care services.

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Paul Burstow)]

The White Paper introduces new measures to help us to deliver better quality services and to improve the care that people experience, including through greater transparency, with new provider quality profiles and new care audits. It also clarifies what quality in care and support means, by setting out principles, standards, roles and responsibilities for driving up the quality of care. The White Paper makes it clear that we will rule out crude commissioning by the minute, which turns care workers into clock-watchers, and that we will work with commissioners, care providers and people who use services and carers in order to bring to an end commissioning practices that undermine people’s dignity and choice.

[Paul Burstow]

I am grateful for that question. Indeed, one of the issues set out in the White Paper is the collaboration by the Department of Health and others with leaders in the care sector to make sure that care homes become much more embedded as part of their local communities and much more genuinely open to their local communities—working with local schools and working with HealthWatch, which will have powers of entry to work with those care homes as well. By turning the spotlight on in a benign way, making sure that all care homes are more open to their public, I think we can significantly improve quality.

[Laura Sandys]

In parallel with the social care budget, do the Government see a strong role for GPs to look at prevention—putting in special monitoring as people get older to ensure that we stay younger and fitter for longer?