Adult Social Care: Challenge Procedures Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Lord Allan of Hallam
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Adult Social Care: Challenge Procedures
Lord Allan of Hallam Excerpts(1 year ago)
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Lord Allan of Hallam (LD)
My Lords, Section 72 of the Care Act 2014 empowers the Secretary of State to regulate for an appeals system through which people can challenge social care decisions. It seems odd that we went to the trouble of legislating for this and yet, nearly a decade later, it still has not been implemented. What more evidence do the Government need to come to a decision about whether the benefits of such an appeal mechanism would outweigh the costs?
Lord Markham (Con)
The main point is that we already have two levels of appeal. In the first instance, someone can appeal to a local authority and if they are not satisfied with that, they can appeal to the local ombudsman. Thousands of people do this every year, and compliance in terms of replies to them is very high. I must admit that I am not sure whether an additional, third level of appeal is really necessary in this case.