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 encourage (a) school age children and (b) adults to pursue a career in social care.

We are working closely with the Department for Education and Skills for Care to make social care a more attractive career option. We are supporting apprenticeships, traineeships and other development programmes in social care and have provided the Prince’s Trust with £20 million to support up to 10,000 young people from disadvantaged backgrounds into employment in the health and social care sector.

We ran a national recruitment campaign across broadcast, digital and social media and we are working with the Department of Work and Pensions to promote adult social care careers to jobseekers. The Department has provided £27 million to expand the Think Ahead programme to train 360 graduates and career switchers to become mental health social workers and distribute approximately £12 million a year through the Workforce Development Fund to support people working in adult social care to undertake training and qualifications.