HEALTH SERVICES AND SOCIAL SERVICES: FINANCE

25th January 2018

Sir Nicholas Soames: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he has to reform the funding of the NHS and adult social care; and what the timetable is for bringing forward proposals on such reform.

Stephen Barclay, Minister of State for Health: The Government is clear that the long term sustainability of the National Health Service and adult social care is a key priority. We support the NHS England report, Next Steps on the NHS Five Year Forward View, published in March 2017. This set out practical steps for ensuring that the NHS is able to adapt and transform to meet our priorities for the future. We are actively working with NHS England and national partners to use the period covered by the Five Year Forward View to put in place the necessary steps for the future.

An ageing society means that we need to reach a longer-term sustainable settlement for social care. This is why the Government is committing to publish a Green Paper by summer 2018 setting out its proposals for reform.

To support these plans for long-term reform, we gave the NHS certainty at the 2015 Spending Review, when we set annual budgets up to and including 2020-21. In doing so, the Government funded the NHS’s Five Year Forward View plan, with a £10 billion a year real terms increase in its budget by 2020/21.

The spring Budget announced an additional £2 billion will be given to councils over the next three years for social care and in total, we have given councils access to £9.25 billion more dedicated funding for social care between 2017/18 and 2019/20.

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