Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether private nursing homes are required to disclose nursing care costs in the contracts of people receiving care packages.

The Department is unable to comment on the specific contracts between individuals and care providers, or on individual cases.

On 30 November 2017, the Competition and Markets Authority published a market study into care homes, which included findings and recommendations about the transparency of costs and contracts. The full study is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/care-homes-market-study

The Government take seriously the findings and the recommendations of this report, all of which will need to be carefully considered. The Government is committed to publish a formal response to the Competition and Markets Authority report within 90 days. We will also need to take forward these complex issues raised by the Competition and Markets Authority as part of the Green Paper on adult social care which will be published in summer 2018.