Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the number of providers of publicly funded (1) home care, and (2) residential and nursing home care services, who have handed back contracts to local authorities in England; what representations they have received from local authorities and others about this issue; and what assessment they have made of the impact of such actions on the performance of the NHS.

Information on the number of providers of publicly funded home care and residential and nursing home care services who have handed back contracts is not held centrally. Ministers have received representations from a number of local authorities (LAs) about market fragility which have touched on the risk of and alluded to actual handing back of contracts.

Following the Chancellor’s announcement in the Budget, LAs in England will receive an additional £2 billion for social care over the next three years.

The additional resources will help LAs commission care services that are sustainable, diverse and offer sufficient high quality care and support for people in their areas.

There is a complex relationship between social care and NHS services. NHS England is working with the Department to identify a fuller understanding of the linkages between health and social care services. It is aiming to undertake some detailed work at local level to exploit linked data where it is available to analyse more fully how changes and variation in the provision of social care impacts on health care services.

The results of the best available academic study indicate that for each additional £1 spent on social care, there is a saving to the National Health Service of £0.35. Also, £1 additional NHS spend corresponds to just over £0.35 reduction on social care.