Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have for future (1) funding, and (2) planning, arrangements in the health and social care sector.

The Government is delivering on its historic five-year National Health Service settlement. The NHS budget will increase by £33.9 billion a year in cash terms by 2023-24 (compared to 2018-19), reflecting that the NHS is this Government’s top domestic spending priority and helping to fund the NHS Long Term Plan.

As regards social care funding, the Government provided councils with access to an additional £1.5 billion for adult and children’s social care in 2020/21 on top of maintaining £2.5 billion of existing social care grants. This was to support local authorities to meet rising demand and continue to stabilise the social care system. In addition, we have now made £3.7 billion available to local authorities so they can address pressures on local services caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, including in adult social care.

On 21 July the Chancellor launched the 2020 Comprehensive Spending Review which will set out the Government’s spending plans for health and social care for future years.