Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the penultimate bullet point on page 7 of People at the Heart of Care: Adult Social Care Reform White Paper published December 2021 setting out the policy to be implemented within three years of at least £300 million to integrate housing into local health and care strategies, for what reasons this policy was not included in the document Next steps to put People at the Heart of Care A plan for adult social care system reform 2023 to 2024 and 2024 to 2025 Published 4 April 2023; and if he will make a statement.

The health and social care system is facing an acute set of challenges, such as inflation and recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic. The Government has rightly considered how best to target resources where they are most needed to ensure value for money for taxpayers, and has therefore decided not to proceed with some white paper proposals at this time.

Ensuring people have the high quality, safe and suitable homes that can help them stay independent and healthy for longer remains key to our vision for Adult Social Care Reform. This is why ‘Next steps to put People at the Heart of Care’ launched the Older People’s Housing Taskforce. The Taskforce will bring together experts from across the sector to make recommendations on how we make sure that older people have a better choice of accommodation to suit their needs and preferences.

In addition to the £573 million for the Disabled Facilities Grant, which is already available in 2023/24 and 2024/25, the ‘Next steps’ publication also announced a further £102 million, with £50 million in 2023/24 and £52 million in 2024/25. Increasing the level of housing adaptation support available in local areas will enable them to fund supplementary services that are agile and help people stay independent, support hospital discharge, and make minor adaptations.