Care Homes: Dementia
(asked on 6th January 2017) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that sufficient care home places are available for people with dementia.
The Care Act (2014) placed duties on local authorities making them responsible for ensuring there is an effective pool of quality providers of social care in their area with capacity to meet the needs of their local population, this includes specialist care needed to support people with dementia. The Department is supporting local authorities to influence their local market through improved market facilitation and commissioning to ensure that local markets are effective.
Local authorities engage with their providers to signal changes needed in capacity including through publishing a Market Position Statement.
The Department has worked with Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, Local Government Association, the care sector and other partners to produce a wide range of guidance and support about market shaping and commissioning. We have brought this together in an on-line Hub that is now published on GOV.UK at the following link:
The Department continues to monitor capacity and effectiveness of the market.