Asked by: David Ward (Liberal Democrat - Bradford East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department has taken to ensure that local authorities commission adult social care services at an hourly rate which provides for staff to receive the national minimum wage and includes travel time between clients.
Answered by Norman Lamb
High quality, compassionate care for the most vulnerable in society can only be delivered by a well-trained, motivated and appropriately remunerated workforce. The Government recognises that pay can be a particular concern for those with the responsibility for delivering those services.
Care providers are legally obliged to pay their workers at least the national minimum wage - relevant time spent travelling between care appointments should be treated as working time for national minimum wage purposes in accordance with HM Revenue and Custom (HMRC) guidance. This is the least that care workers deserve and should expect.
Responsibility for enforcement of the national minimum wage rests with HMRC rather than local authorities. However, the Care Act places duties on local authorities to have regard to fostering an effective workforce able to deliver high quality services.
The Government has recently published statutory guidance to support the implementation of the Care Act that describes how local authorities must meet these new duties when commissioning, which directs that local authorities should have evidence that care providers they contract with are paying at least the national minimum wage, including factoring into those calculations any time spent travelling between care appointments and that those providers found to be recently in breach of the law, should be excluded from the contract tendering process.
The Government has also worked with the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services and the Local Government Association to co-produce a set of commissioning standards that were launched in October 2014. These standards amplify the good practice set out in the statutory guidance in regards to fostering an effective workforce.
Asked by: David Ward (Liberal Democrat - Bradford East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of Health and Wellbeing Boards since their introduction.
Answered by Norman Lamb
Health and Wellbeing Boards (HWBs) have been in place in every upper tier and unitary local authority since April 2013. In that time, the Department has implemented a range of programme support, direct engagement and evaluation, in order to maintain an ongoing overview of the development and effectiveness of HWBs.
The Department has funded the Local Government Association (LGA) to deliver a development and improvement programme for local health and wellbeing systems, with a strong focus on supporting HWBs’ development. An independent evaluation of both the programme and the current state of development and effectiveness of HWBs was published in April 2014. This can be found on the LGA website at the following link. A further independent evaluation is due for publication in December this year.
Departmental officials have also reviewed independent evaluation, notably the King’s Fund study Health and Wellbeing Boards: One Year On published in October 2013; and the published reports of the intensive peer challenge visits delivered in local authorities as part of the LGA development programme.
Asked by: David Ward (Liberal Democrat - Bradford East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent assessment his Department has made of the (a) effectiveness and (b) value for money of independent sector treatment centres.
Answered by Dan Poulter
The Department has not carried out a recent formal assessment of the effectiveness and value for money of independent sector treatment centres (ISTCs). Since 1 April 2013 remaining ISTC contracts have been transferred to NHS England. There are six remaining contracts, two of which expire on 31 March 2015 and a further two expiring 31 October 2015. While NHS England continues to make monthly payments to ISTC providers under the remaining contracts and maintains on-going monthly reporting of value paid to providers, day to day management of the contracts is carried out by local commissioners who have responsibility for budgets and driving value from the contracts.
As three of the contracts have guaranteed minimum amounts paid to providers the payment to providers can be greater than the sum of the contract price, multiplied by activity, for each type of activity delivered. Reporting for the latest month of activity analysed, May 2014, shows a 99% value being achieved in that month with the shortfall arising from two contracts covering elective care activity in the South West and Manchester.