Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what estimate they have made of the number of private care homes likely to close during 2017 due to local authorities not being able to pay fees; and what alternative provision will be made to accommodate displaced elderly and infirm residents in order to avoid increased demands for hospital bed spaces.

The Department continues to work with the Care Quality Commission to monitor care home capacity and although there is inevitable churn, we have not seen a significant decline in care home beds.

The Government understands concerns about the pressures in the market. Although local government finances remain tight, Government has provided local authorities access to up to £7.6 billion of new support for social care by 2019/20, so they can increase social care spending in real terms by the end of the Parliament.

The Care Act (2014) placed duties on local authorities making them responsible for ensuring there is an effective pool of quality providers of social care in their area with capacity to meet the needs of their local population. The Department is supporting local authorities to influence their local market through improved market facilitation and commissioning to ensure that local markets are effective.

The Department has worked with Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, Local Government Association, the care sector and other partners to produce a wide range of guidance and support about market shaping and commissioning. We have brought this together in an online hub called Adult Social Care Market Shaping which is an online only resource widely available to people and organisations including local authorities, service users, and care providers.

The Department continues to monitor capacity and effectiveness of the market.