Agenda item

Speaker: David Mowat MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Community Health and Care

The Chairman welcomed the Minister to the meeting.

Advising members that he would focus on Adult Social Care, the Minister discussed demographics and the implications of this on care, emphasising that local and central government would increasingly need to work together on this issue. Whilst 81% of councils believed that the implementation of the Care Act had been positive, 38% of councils were not confident they had enough money to implement the act over the next year. This would increase to 73% the following year. Though the money for social care had been reduced during the last Parliament, he advised members that an increase was now being discussed.

The Minister acknowledged that there was a challenge to government to ensure that the organisations responsible for providing care were performing well. Government could improve integration amongst organisations and increase the sharing of best practise.  He emphasised the importance of recognising care as a high status career with more training and apprenticeships available, and clearer legislation in place to enable individuals to obtain leave for care purposes. The Carers’ Strategy would be published soon to assist informal carers, whilst the Care Act would ensure there was a continuing assessment of carers’ needs.

On STPs, he advised members that the 44 operating would be reviewed shortly.

In the discussion that followed, the following points were made:

·         Members asked if extra resources would be linked to the inspection process as this would increase costs for local authorities.

·         Members asked what the government’s contingency plans were if a major national care provider went out of business. They were informed that the Care Quality Commission monitored the largest care providers and would work with local authorities to ensure that there were appropriate safety nets in place.

·         Members raised concerns on social care provision within rural communities and the cost of delivering this.

·         There were concerns that the status of carer was affected by the role being paid only the national minimum wage. It would be difficult to increase the status of the role unless the salary increased.

·         Concerns were raised around delivering STPs with a lack of capital and in finding a way to grow capacity to provide care to people in their own homes.

·         There was a brief discussion on finding carers if workers in the profession left following Brexit.

·         There were concerns that some local authorities were negotiating with more than one STPs, due to the demographics in their area.

·         There was a discussion around the increasing number of health issues in older people (particularly those with long term conditions). It would become more usual for older people to live with multiple conditions, since 80% of the population were now living over the age of 85 years.

·         Members raised the issue of funding of social care. They were informed that the Chancellor was likely to address this in the forthcoming spring budget.

The Chairman thanked the Minister and the discussion was drawn to a close.