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 to tackle the shortage of social care packages in (a) Royal Hampshire County Hospital and (b) Winchester.

Local authorities are best placed to understand and plan for the needs of their population, which is why, under the Care Act 2014, local authorities are tasked with the duty to shape their care market and to commission services to meet the diverse needs of all local people. In performing that duty, a local authority must have regard to current and likely future demand for such services and consider how providers might meet that demand.

The Market Sustainability and Improvement Fund includes grant conditions which require each local authority to submit an adult social care capacity plan. These were submitted to the Department in June 2024.

The Government is supporting local authorities by making available up to £3.7 billion of additional funding for social care authorities in 2025/26, which includes an £880 million increase in the Social Care Grant.