UK Parliament / Open data

Care Bill [HL]

It may be convenient for the Committee if I take together the questions of the noble Lords, Lord Campbell-Savours and Lord Hunt, because the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, asked me about the role of the independent sector in participating in training and indeed in funding it. Perhaps I may clarify that.

The Health and Social Care Act 2012 placed a duty on the Secretary of State to ensure an effective education and training system, as I mentioned earlier. The Act also placed a duty on commissioners of health services to ensure that providers support the Secretary of State in this duty when contracting with them. The Government have already put into place measures to deliver the Secretary of State’s education and training duty by amending the commissioning contracts and supporting regulations for the delivery of services, so they now require co-operation on education and training. This means that all providers of NHS services are expected to co-operate and, where appropriate, this co-operation will involve them providing education and training.

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Current funding arrangements for education and training are based on top-slicing NHS budgets. That is a simple and effective method of funding, but the contributions of individual providers are not transparent. Introducing a levy on providers to raise the central budget would be one way of improving transparency and ensuring that those who train are rewarded for doing so, while those who undertake less training than they receive the benefit from contribute to the training provided by others. A number of concerns about the practicalities associated with introducing a levy have been raised by stakeholders. Given the size of such a change and the range of views received, before we produce firm proposals for consultation we will undertake further work and consult widely on how such a levy could be designed and the possible impact it would have.

The noble Lord asked me whether “health services” in Clause 90 equate to the health service in general interpretation. Clause 86 (5) states:

“‘Health services’ means health services provided as part of the health service”.

The extent to which the independent sector will be participants in training or will fund training has yet to be determined. Consultation on the White Paper sought views on introducing a levy. Many respondents felt

that the proposals should be developed slowly, with widespread consultation, to avoid any unintended consequences and that is the approach we are taking. The NHS Future Forum expressed particular concern about the impact of such a system on third sector and local authority employers, so my general answer is that this is something we are considering and I hope we will be able to bring forward some proposals shortly.

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

745 cc1494-5 

Session

2013-14

Chamber / Committee

House of Lords chamber
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