Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he plans to take through social care reforms to help (a) reduce waiting times for and (b) increase access to care services in rural areas.

Local authorities are responsible for assessing individuals’ care and support needs and, where eligible, for meeting those needs. Where individuals do not meet the eligibility threshold, they can get support from their local authorities in making their own arrangements for care services, as set out in the Care Act 2014. Local authorities have a further duty to shape their care markets and commission a diverse range of care and support services that enable people to access quality care.

The majority of grant funding for adult social care is distributed to local authorities using the Adult Social Care Relative Needs Formula. This is designed to account for factors that affect the differences in the need for, and cost of, adult social care services that are outside of local authorities’ control, including population, income and wealth, informal care support, wages and prices, and population sparsity.

We recognise that there are challenges in adult social care. Lord Darzi’s report indicated a growing gap between requests and those receiving publicly funded care, and some people are waiting too long to get the care they need. Long-term reform is needed in adult social care, and we will work with the sector to create a sustainable care system across all constituencies that supports people to live independent and dignified lives.

In the short term, the Government is providing at least £600 million of new grant funding for social care in 2025/26, as part of the broader estimated real-terms uplift to core local government spending power of approximately 3.2%. We will set out further details at the Local Government Finance Settlement.

In addition, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) local authority assessments consider the performance of the delivery of Care Act 2014 duties. If the CQC identifies that a local authority has failed or is failing its functions to an acceptable standard, my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has powers to intervene. The CQC has published twelve local authority ratings and reports.