Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps the Government has taken to improve the monitoring of the adequacy of care provided in care homes.

As at February 2018, 81% of social care organisations are rated by the Care Quality Commission as Good/Outstanding. However, it is completely unacceptable that standards in some settings fall below those rightly expected by care users and their families.

The Government introduced tougher inspections of care services and councils have been given access in total to £9.4 billion more dedicated funding for social care between 2017/18 and 2019/20.

This summer we will publish plans to reform our social care system to make it sustainable for the future. The consultation will set out options to put the social care system on a more secure footing and address issues to improve the quality of care and reduce variation in practice.

The Department is also working with the adult social care sector to implement Quality Matters – a shared commitment to take action to achieve high quality adult social care through six actions.