Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of the number of children with education and health care plans who will require support after the age of 25 on the adult social care system.

The Department commissions the Care Policy and Evaluation Centre (CPEC) at the London School of Economics to produce projections of the long-term demand and cost of adult social care services in England. These include projections of the number of working aged adults, namely those aged between 18 and 64 years old, in receipt of local authority-funded care services. The most recently published CPEC projections show that the number of working age adults in receipt of social care services is projected to increase by 29% between 2018 and 2038. As with any projection of the future, CPEC estimates are based on a specific set of data and assumptions and should therefore be treated with caution. The projections are available at the following link:

https://www.lse.ac.uk/cpec/assets/documents/cpec-working-paper-7.pdf

The Department is committed to building consensus on the long-term reform needed to create a National Care Service that addresses challenges working age disabled adults currently face and that is shaped for those who will have support needs in the future, including children who currently have health and care plans. The Government will set out next steps for a process that engages with adult social care stakeholders in due course.