Asked by: Will Stone (Labour - Swindon North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he has to review the Department’s approach to tackling alcohol harm; and whether he will consider introducing an alcohol strategy in this Parliament.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Under our Health Mission, the Government is committed to prioritising preventative public health measures to support people to live longer, healthier lives. The Department will continue to work across Government to better understand how we can best reduce alcohol-related harms.
Asked by: Will Stone (Labour - Swindon North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of introducing an exemption from the increase in employer's National Insurance contributions for care homes in which more than half of residents are funded by the local authority.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government will provide support for departments and other public sector employers for additional employer National Insurance costs only. This does not include support for the private sector, including private sector firms contracted by central or local government.
This is the usual approach the Government takes to supporting the public sector with additional employer National Insurance contribution costs, as was the case with the previous Government’s Health and Social Care Levy.
The Government considered the cost pressures facing adult social care and wider local government spending as part of the Spending Review process.
The Government is providing a 6.8% cash terms increase in core council spending power in 2025/26. To support social care authorities to deliver key services in light of pressures, at the provisional Local Government Finance Settlement we announced a further £200 million for adult and children’s social care. This will be allocated via the Social Care Grant, bringing the total increase of this grant in 2025/26 to £880 million, meaning that up to £3.7 billion of additional funding will be provided to social care authorities in 2025/26.
Asked by: Will Stone (Labour - Swindon North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of whether the Bath, Swindon, and Wiltshire Integrated Care Board's decision to award a contract to HCRG Care Group for community-based care (a) includes social value in the contract, (b) conducts a public interest test for procurement and (c) ensures value for money while achieving the goals in the Business Case.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Following a procurement process, HCRG Care Group will lead an innovative partnership with the National Health Service, local authorities, and voluntary sector groups, and will take responsibility for community services from 1 April 2025, under a contract that will run for at least a seven-year period.
The performance of HCRG Care Group, both from a clinical and non-clinical perspective, will be subject to the same scrutiny as all other health and care providers commissioned by the integrated care board (ICB), which includes NHS and non-NHS organisations. The contract contains the usual safeguards and ability to issue notices, as is standard with all NHS contracts. There is a fixed financial envelope, and the provider is contractually required to deliver the services from within this funding. HCRG Care Group will also be required to undertake regular reporting regarding financial performance to the ICB.
I understand from the ICB that social value contributions will be monitored as part of the contract monitoring process. As part of procurement evaluation, 10% of the score was weighted to social value benefits in line with central guidance. The commitments made by HCRG Care Group within their bid form part of their contract.
Furthermore, the ICB report that they had a legal duty to proceed to procurement because existing contracts were ending and there was no scope to legally extend them further. Reprocuring the contract could not be subject to consultation as it was not optional. The procurement was carried out in line with the requirements of the process, and therefore, commissioners are required to abide by the outcome.
Engagement with patients and the public took place on the ICB’s Health and Care model and elements of the ICB’s Integrated Care Strategy, which gave a framework of the priorities that fed into market engagement events with providers. These events shaped the primary and community questions response from the ICB’s Delivery Plan, and subsequent transformation priorities and key outcomes for integrated community-based care, which formed the basis of the Integrated Community Based Care programme, and the procurement.