PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
In-home Health and Social Care Services - 25 April 2023 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

I want people to live independently in their own homes for longer with the care that they need. We are investing half a billion pounds annually through the disabled facilities grant to pay for housing adaptations, and supporting the home care workforce through our record social care funding increase and workforce reforms. Our new and expanded NHS virtual wards give people hospital-level care in their own homes.

My constituent, Ewan, recently lost his grandfather. His grandfather would have liked to have spent more time at home in his last few days, but he could not because of resources—the people were not there. What are the Government doing about that? There is a real recruitment and retention crisis in the social care workforce.

The hon. Member makes an important point about people spending their last days of life where they would like to spend them, which, more often than not, means at home. That comes down to supporting end-of-life care—hospices play a really important role in providing that care in people’s homes—and supporting the adult social care workforce. We are investing up to £7.5 billion in social care over the next two years and taking forward important reforms to support the adult social care workforce. As I mentioned a moment ago, we are increasing the amount of hospital-level care that people can get at home by expanding our virtual wards, which, by next winter, will mean that up to 50,000 people a month can be cared for to that level at home.

I thank the hon. Lady for giving me another opportunity to talk about what we are doing to support adult social care: an extra £7.5 billion was announced at the autumn statement to support adult social, an extra £700 million was spent on supporting discharges into social care over this winter, and we have already announced £600 million to support discharges to people’s homes with the provision of social care over the coming year, because we recognise how important it is for people to get the care they need at home. The workforce are crucial to that, which is why we are taking forward our reforms to the adult social care workforce as announced a couple of weeks ago.