Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what models of long-term care used in other countries his Department has examined; and what conclusions he has drawn from that examination.

The ageing population presents one of our nation’s most profound challenges, raising critical questions as to how as a society we enable all adults to live well into later life and how we deliver sustainable public services that support them to do so.

An ageing society means that we need to reach a longer-term sustainable settlement for social care. This is why the Government is committing to publishing a Green Paper by summer 2018 setting out its proposals for reform. An Inter-Ministerial Group, chaired by the First Secretary of State, is overseeing this work.

This Government wants to take the time to consult and build consensus a long-term, sustainable settlement for the future, which includes looking at the quality of care being delivered, the funding of the system and how it will be paid for in the round. This will include looking to experiences in other countries to inform our proposals.

Whilst international comparisons of different funding systems are being actively explored in preparation for the Green Paper, there are significant circumstantial differences which make it difficult to directly compare the British and Japanese systems.