My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing the SI, which sets out the process of fines, including notice periods and the right
of appeal, for adult social care providers that fail to provide any or accurate information to the Health Secretary without reasonable excuse. It is important for adult social care providers to be required to supply the Department of Health and Social Care with key data and information. The use and further development of the capacity tracker, which was the only tool available to get the vital data needed during the pandemic, is a welcome step forward.
It is indeed truly striking, as the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, said, that prior to the pandemic there was no comprehensive national data from providers on workforce status, bed availability or the number of people in receipt of care. Regularised, standardised and accurate data is vital in order to get an up-to-date understanding of how the care system is functioning. The noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, made that point very forcefully. It is very worrying that since the infection control fund ended, data completion and submission rates from care homes have declined. How are care homes to be supported in the work involved, in light of their current desperate shortage of staffing and funds?
We recognise the need to put information submission from care homes on a statutory footing and acknowledge that the SI is largely uncontroversial. It flows from amendments to the Health and Social Care Act 2012 made by the Health and Care Act 2022, as has been stated, on more extensive and accurate data provision and transparency in the sector, which we all argued for and supported at the time. Has the Minister made any assessment of how much money will be paid in fines each year? Will smaller providers definitely be able to digest government guidelines and keep up with monthly data collection? Can the Minister be sure that no care homes will be forced to shut or scale back their services due to these regulations? The reassurances that providers that do not submit data will be helped and supported and that fines will be the last resort are also welcome, as the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, said.
2.45 pm
Have the Government made any assessment of the additional costs that Regulation 8 on the appeals process could give rise to for providers appealing their fines through the First-tier Tribunal and county courts? The Explanatory Memorandum reported on the consultation exercise with the sector and its serious concerns about the existing data collection burden. It simply says:
“The DHSC long-term data strategy will address many of these issues.”
Will the Minister explain the overall approach that is being taken in the strategy which would impact on the situation, and when this part of the strategy is to be finalised and published?
The regulations will be reviewed every five years. What is the Government’s justification for this? If the regulations are not working as intended or are too or insufficiently punitive after two years, for example, what will be the opportunity to revisit them?
Having access to this crucial data will improve the ability of policymakers to judge risk in the care system, which we know to be under significant stress, but
without the requisite data we are unable to make detailed assessments. We welcome the reassurance that the data will be subject to the GDPR restrictions and will be shared appropriately with local authorities and ICSs. It is also right that financial penalties, where a provider is persistently in breach of data obligations and has not made appropriate attempts to rectify that, will be scaled to the provider type and size.
We very much support the ambition of the Department of Health and Social Care to improve the accessibility of the data available to providers by linking and joining up the capacity tracker to other data sources, particularly across the Care Quality Commission and local authorities. Will the Minister update the Committee on this work? The capacity tracker data is published monthly, so we will certainly need the same transparency with the expanded information that will be obtained. The Minister’s reassurances on this would be very welcome.