Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that the quality of social care provision is not being affected by increase in demand.

The number of people receiving care commissioned by local authorities has remained broadly flat in the past three years, with 656,510 receiving support in 2014/15 compared to 654,765 in 2016/17.

81% of adult social care providers are rated as good or outstanding by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) (as at May 2018), nonetheless it is completely unacceptable that standards in some settings fall below those rightly expected by care users and their families.

That is why the Care Act 2014 placed a new duty on councils to offer a meaningful choice of services, so that people have a range of high quality, appropriate care options to choose from and that they get the services that best meet their needs.

The Government introduced tougher inspections, led by the CQC, to make sure that services meet quality and safety standards.

The Department is working with the adult social care sector to implement Quality Matters – a shared commitment to take action to achieve high quality adult social care for service users, families, carers and everyone working in the sector.

This summer we will publish plans to reform our social care system to make it sustainable for the future. The consultation will set out options to put the social care system on a more secure footing and address issues to improve the quality of care and reduce variation in practice.