Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will make an assessment of the effect of recent social care budget changes on people with dementia.

Expenditure on adult social care and the future demand for services will be reviewed as part of the Spending Review.

However, over the current spending review period the Department allocated additional funding to local authorities, including a transfer from the National Health Service worth £1.1 billion a year in 2014/15, to be spent on social care with a health benefit.

Spending on social care is ultimately a local decision made by individual councils.

Moreover, from April 2015, councils and the NHS will pool £5.3 billion of their local budgets to form the Better Care Fund. This will require local authorities and the NHS to work together, and engage local partners, including voluntary sector organisations. Local areas will be expected to use some of this to improve care for people with dementia.