Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of using different means tests for residential and home-based care on people with modest savings and significant care needs.

The current adult social care system is means tested and provides funded support for those with the least financial means. Individuals can approach their local authority for a financial assessment to determine whether they are eligible. While the Department sets the minimum thresholds for this means test, local authorities have the discretion to set higher thresholds if they choose.

Where an individual receives care at home, the value of their home is not considered during this financial assessment.

Where local authorities choose to charge for care, they must follow the Care Act 2014, and must ensure that care charges are both transparent and affordable.

The Government remains committed to reforming adult social care and we have launched an independent commission into adult social care as part of our critical first steps towards delivering a National Care Service. The Terms of Reference are sufficiently broad to enable Baroness Casey to independently consider how to build a social care system fit for the future, including considering the affordability of care costs, if she sees fit.