§ Dr. Moonieasked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he will consider reviewing the situation whereby a local authority cannot top up a person's board and lodging payment to a private or charitable nursing or old people's home, but must instead meet the full cost, if Department of Health and Social Security rates are insufficient.
§ Mr. ScottLocal authorities can already top up supplementary benefit payments for residential care for people under pension age or for older people whose payments have been topped up for two years before they reach pension age. The possibility of extending this arrangement to all elderly people in residential care, which would require primary legislation, is one of the matters considered by the joint central and local government working party on supplementary benefit and residential care, whose report will be published shortly. The findings of the working party, as well as the position of people needing care in other settings outside hospital, including nursing homes, will need to be looked at in the context of the overview of community care which Sir Roy Griffiths has been asked to carry out by the end of the year.
§ Dr. Moonieasked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether attendance allowance, where payable, generally is deducted from the payment made for board and lodging allowance to persons in old people's homes.
§ Mr. ScottFor supplementary benefit claimants in residential care and nursing homes, attendance allowance is taken into account as a resource in the calculation of their benefit. This is because supplementary benefit can be paid up to substantially higher levels than in ordinary board and lodging establishments, in recognition of the fact that care is provided. Not to take attendance allowance into account in such a system would in effect be double provision.