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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Redfern on 2015-12-16.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is being done to increase the number of specially adapted homes in (1) North Lincolnshire, and (2) nationally, so that those with complex care needs can live independently for longer.

Baroness Williams of Trafford

Since 2011 the Government has invested over a billion pounds into the Disabled Facilities Grant to fund adaptations to disabled people’s homes to help them live independently and safely at home for longer. This provides for around 40,000 adaptations each year and around 200,000 homes have been adapted since 2010. North Lincolnshire has received £5,143,717 of this funding over this period. Future funding for the Disabled Facilities Grant will rise to over £500 million in 2019-20.

The Government is also providing specialised housing for disabled and older people through the Care and Support Specialised Housing Fund and the Affordable Homes Programme and these will deliver 24 specialised homes in North Lincolnshire between 2011 – 2018.

In the Spending Review we have committed to £400 million of funding to deliver 8,000 specialist homes for the vulnerable, elderly or those with disabilities. A commitment to funding from Department of Health could deliver up to a further 7,500 homes over the Spending Review.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Redfern on 2015-12-16.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment the Department for Health has made of the number of adult carers in the UK, and the capacity of those carers to provide an improved quality of care to individuals in their own homes.

Lord Prior of Brampton

We have assumed the Noble Lady is referring to informal, unpaid, carers rather than to paid care workers.

The 2011 Census indicated that there are approximately 6.26 million adults with informal caring responsibilities in the United Kingdom.

The Government recognises the invaluable contribution made by unpaid carers and the importance of supporting them in their caring roles. That is why we continue to support implementation of the improved rights for carers enshrined in The Care Act 2014. This includes a right to an assessment on the appearance of needs for support that will look at a carer’s wellbeing in their own right and what support they may need in their caring role.

The Department has provided £104 million of funding to local authorities for these rights in 2015/16, which include, for the first time, a legal duty on local authorities to meet carers’ eligible needs for support. We have also made an additional £400 million available to the NHS between 2011 and 2015 to provide carers with breaks from their caring responsibilities to sustain them in their caring role. The carers’ breaks funding of £130 million for 2015/16 is in the Better Care Fund.

The Department is also leading the development of a new cross-Government National Carers Strategy that will look at what more we can do to support existing carers and future carers.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Redfern on 2015-12-16.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they intend to encourage local authorities to include personal assessments as part of a broader care programme alongside other measures to help individuals to achieve greater control over the support they receive.

Lord Prior of Brampton

One of the overarching aims of the Care Act 2014 is to give people more choice and control over their care and support. Local authorities must assess any person who appears to have care and support needs. The aim of the needs assessment is to identify what needs individuals may have, what impact these needs have on their wellbeing, and what outcomes they are looking to achieve. The Act also requires that the person, their carer and anyone else they request must be involved in the assessment.

The Act clarifies that one method of carrying out an assessment is through a supported self-assessment, where the person and local authority carry out the assessment jointly. This gives the person more control over their own assessment and supports their involvement in the development of their care and support plan.

The Department published statutory guidance which provides more detail on the assessment provisions for local authorities. The Department also commissioned Skills for Care and the Social Care Institute for Care Excellence to develop materials to support local authorities with the implementation of the assessment requirements, including supported self-assessment.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Redfern on 2015-12-16.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what measures are being introduced to improve access to information and advice for those choosing specialist care packages to ensure that the support they receive is best suited to their individual requirements.

Lord Prior of Brampton

The Care Act 2014 places a duty on local authorities to establish and maintain information and advice services relating to care and support for all people in its area. Statutory guidance sets out the detail of what this is required to cover and the manner it in which it should be provided. This includes providing information and advice to those people who are known to the local authority and the wider population, and to those who have not presented to local authorities for assessment but are likely to be in need of care and support. Where it appears to a local authority that an adult may have needs for care and support, the authority must assess their needs. The aim of the assessment is to identify what needs the person may have and what outcomes they are looking to achieve to maintain or improve their wellbeing. The outcome of the assessment is to provide a full picture of the individual’s needs so that a local authority can provide an appropriate response at the right time to meet the level of the person’s needs. This might range from offering guidance and information to arranging for services to meet those needs.

The Department has supported local authorities to meet this duty with a range of practical and practice based guides, developed with a wide range of interests through the Think Local Act Personal partnership.

General information on care and support is provided nationally through the NHS Choices website. This includes a search facility for all registered providers of care and support that gives practical and quality information on their services. This information is available for all local authorities and other providers of care and support information to re-use through syndication.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Redfern on 2015-12-16.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assistance is being offered to social work teams to equip them with the necessary resources to provide high quality and affordable residential care both (1) nationally, and (2) in North Lincolnshire.

Lord Prior of Brampton

The Government is committed to improving the quality of adult social care and has taken a number of steps to improve it in all localities.

The Department is working with its delivery partner Skills for Care to improve training and development for the workforce. In April 2015, we introduced a Certificate of Fundamental Care, now known as the Care Certificate. This will help ensure that care workers can deliver a consistently high quality standard of care.

The Department is funding and working with a number of organisations, including the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), Skills for Care, the Social Care Institute for Excellence, the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services and the Local Government Association on a range of projects to help adult social care organisations and staff improve the quality of care. These resources include new NICE Quality Standards and Guidelines, which bring clarity to what excellence looks like in care.

Ultimately it is a local decision as to how to allocate resources for social care, as such the Department cannot comment specifically on North Lincolnshire.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Redfern on 2015-12-16.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps are being taken to increase the number of Wellbeing Hubs nationally to help individuals with complex care requirements to access support locally for their individual requirements.

Lord Prior of Brampton

Where commissioned, wellbeing hubs can provide a range services including lifestyle advice, information about self-management courses and help to access local support, including social care. It is for the local National Health Service to decide whether to commission wellbeing hubs and which services should be offered in order to best meet the needs of local populations.