Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if his Department will take steps to (a) publish guidance and (b) bring forward legislative proposals to help tackle the rising costs for paid carers of attending home appointments.

We have no plans to bring forward legislative proposals. Under the Care Act 2014, local authorities have a duty to manage local care markets and should ensure that fee levels are appropriate to provide the agreed quality of care, enable providers to effectively support care users and invest in staff development, innovation and improvement. The majority of care workers are employed by private sector providers who set their pay and terms and conditions, independent of central Government. Local authorities work with care providers to determine fee rates, which should take account of wage costs, based on local market conditions.

However, we have made an additional £3.7 billion available for councils for 2022/23, which includes £1 billion specifically for social care. In addition, we are committing £1.36 billion over three years to the Market Sustainability and Fair Cost of Care Fund to support local authorities to move towards paying providers a fair cost of care. As a condition of receiving funding, local authorities will be required to submit an evidence-based cost of care exercise. This should accurately reflect local costs such as staff pay and travel time. We published guidance for the Market Sustainability and Fair Cost of Care Fund to ensure greater consistency in understanding the local costs and risks to local markets.