Asked by: Lord Lipsey (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government when they expect to publish their Green Paper on social care.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
The Social Care Green Paper remains a priority for this Government and the Department. We will be publishing the Green Paper at the earliest opportunity.
Asked by: Lord Lipsey (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what they estimate would be the cost of introducing a cap on social care costs along the lines proposed by the Dilnot report of (1) £35,000, (2) £75,000, or (3) £100,000.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
The Government will work to address the challenges of social care for our ageing society to reach a longer-term sustainable settlement for social care. This is why the Government has committed to publishing a Green Paper later this year setting out its proposals for reform.
The Green Paper will bring forward ideas for including an element of risk pooling in the system, which will help to protect people from the unpredictability of care costs. An updated impact assessment and any relevant costings will be provided as part of the Green Paper publication.
Estimates of the cost of introducing a cap on social care costs, along the lines proposed by the 2011 Commission on Funding Care and Support, can be found in an Impact Assessment (IA) previously published by the Department in February 2015. A copy of the Social Care Funding Reform Impact Assessment IA No: 9531 is attached.
It is important to note that the IA does not represent current Government plans, which will be set out following the social care Green Paper consultation, but is the last available published data on the cap.
The IA shows that the cost of a £72,000 cap, together with the means test reforms planned at the time, would be £1.79 billion in 2025/26 (in 2016/17 prices and assuming implementation in April 2016).
Asked by: Lord Lipsey (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of research from Reform indicating that the number of deferred payments issued by local authorities has not risen since 2012, whether they plan to widen access to the Deferred Payment Scheme by raising the £23,500 means threshold.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
The Care Act 2014 introduced universal Deferred Payment Agreements (DPAs) so that people should not be forced to sell their homes in their lifetimes to pay for care. The eligibility criteria for DPAs are designed to ensure that they are available to those who would otherwise be at risk of having to sell their homes.
The Department is continuing to monitor the success of the scheme, and data on the uptake of DPAs across all local authorities will be available later this year.
Asked by: Lord Lipsey (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what will be the cost in a full year of the increase in the rate of NHS-funded nursing care to £156.25 per week.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
The Department estimates that the total cost of the increase in National Health Service-funded Nursing Care to £156.25 per week in 2016-17, is approximately £190 million.