Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to help support social care staff to progress in their (a) careers and (b) pay through the care workforce pathway.

The recently published care workforce pathway provides, for the first time, a national career structure for the adult social care sector that defines role categories and supports care workers in their professional development and to progress in their careers. To support the implementation of the pathway the Government is also providing funding for thousands of training places and is developing a new Level 2 Adult Social Care Certificate qualification for the sector.