Health and Social Care Bill

Regulation and training are often put as two words in one sentence. Regulation may indeed include training; assured voluntary registers may also include training. The noble Baroness, Lady Emerton, talked about that. Perhaps I may come on to it, because it is potentially relevant here. I am particularly grateful to the noble Baroness for her contribution to this debate, not only today but throughout her time in the House of Lords. We agree that common standards of training are needed for those working in both health and social care, as well as more role-specific training, and that this will lead to a more capable and flexible group of support workers. As we seek to integrate health and social care more effectively, this area deserves a lot of scrutiny. We expect work on the standards to begin by April 2012 in terms of training, and for them to be agreed ahead of the establishment of voluntary registers for healthcare support workers and adult social care workers, which could be operational from 2013. This will allow unregulated workers to demonstrate that they meet a set of minimum standards for training and are committed to a code of conduct.