Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will take steps to help ensure that adult social care providers receiving the revised Cost of Care from local authorities from October 2023, while simultaneously receiving higher self funder rates to 2025 from those already living in care homes, will use any excess profits accrued in those two years to improve the quality of care and or to alleviate workforce pressures.

We are committing £1.36 billion over three years to the Market Sustainability and Fair Cost of Care Fund, to support local authorities to prepare markets for reform and move towards paying a fair cost of care. In 2022/23, this will include collecting data on actual provider costs and devising a strategy to use funding to address market risks, which could include workforce pressures. In 2023/24 and 2024/25, we expect local authorities to implement this strategy, including making further movement towards paying providers a fair cost of care.