Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent discussions he has had with local authorities on support for those bodies to help address shortages in the social care system.

Supporting hospital flow and reducing delayed discharges requires a whole system approach across the National Health Service, adult social care, housing, the voluntary sector and others. Hospital discharge services are therefore supported by staff across a range of health and social care professions in England and in York.

We have committed at least £500 million to develop the social care workforce, including for training places and for initiatives to improve wellbeing. We are also promoting adult social care careers through national recruitment campaigns, such as ‘Made with Care’ which ran between November 2021 and 31 March 2022. A further campaign for 2022/23 is in development. We are also working with the Department of Work and Pensions to promote adult social care careers to jobseekers. Care workers have been made eligible for the Health and Care Visa and added to the Shortage Occupation List to allow social care employers to recruit eligible workers from overseas.

In winter 2021/22, we made £462.5 million available to local authorities to increase workforce capacity via the Workforce Recruitment and Retention Funds, including £1,410,240 allocated to York. We have regular discussions with stakeholders, including local government representatives, on a range of issues including the adult social care workforce.