Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to help increase staff (a) recruitment and (b) retention in the adult social care sector.

We are investing at least £250 million over the next two years on workforce reforms, a key objective of which is to improve retention and turnover rates.

In July we announced the £570 million Market Sustainability and Improvement Fund -Workforce Fund to support increased adult social care capacity, improve market sustainability, and enable local authorities to make tangible improvements to adult social care services, with a particular focus on workforce pay. Local authorities can choose to use this funding to increase adult social care workforce and improve retention.

We are also supporting recruitment and retention by delivering our ongoing National Recruitment Campaign; working with the Department of Work and Pensions to promote adult social care careers to jobseekers; and supporting international recruitment.