Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, which Integrated Care Systems have worked with the independent adult social care sector to prepare for the provision of services during winter 2018-19; and how much capacity has been identified in the adult social care sector.

Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) include local councils, who have statutory responsibility to commission social care for the populations they serve. The Department and NHS England would expect all of them to be regularly talking to and working with social care providers, given their remit to join up health and social care services. ICSs must identify adult social care capacity within their area, in order to meet the social care needs of the population they serve.