Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to help ensure the adult social care sector has sufficient (a) capacity and (b) skills to prepare for potential increases in the number of patients with dementia over the next 10 years.

The Government is fully committed to the 10-year vision for adult social care set out in the People at the Heart of Care white paper.. The social care workforce remains at the heart of our reform plans, and we want them to feel supported, recognised and have opportunities to develop and progress. Our workforce reforms will provide the workforce with more support to develop and progress within their careers and will improve the quality, safety, and personalisation of care.

We are supporting care workers to develop their skills through new career pathways. We will soon launch a new Care Workforce Pathway to provide a framework for employers and care workers to develop skills and experience in the sector. This is alongside a new care certificate qualification and range of new funded training schemes.

We want all relevant staff to have received appropriate training to provide high quality care to people with dementia, whether in hospital or in the community. The required training needs are set out in the Dementia Training Standards Framework, which is available at the following link:

https://www.skillsforhealth.org.uk/info-hub/dementia-2015-updated-2018/

The Framework was commissioned and funded by the Department and developed in collaboration with the sector. It sets out the essential knowledge and skills and expected learning outcomes applicable across the health and care spectrum.