Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to increase innovation in adult social care.

The Government recognises that innovation is vital in supporting the adult social care sector to adjust to the changing needs of the population. We want to support local authorities and providers to adopt new approaches to delivering care, improving outcomes for people who draw on care, and their unpaid carers. This includes enshrining home-first principles that enable people to live independently in their communities for longer.

The Accelerating Reform Fund aims to address barriers to the adoption and scaling of innovation in adult social care and improve support for unpaid carers. Local authorities are supported to take forward locally identified innovative projects, working collaboratively with other local authorities, the National Health Service, care providers, and voluntary and community organisations in their integrated care system footprints.

Through the Adult Social Care Technology Fund, we are also supporting local systems to test, scale, and evaluate innovative digital solutions to ensure people are supported in their own homes for longer. We know there are opportunities for technologies to transform care, and by building our evidence base we can help identify care technologies with the potential for wider rollout.