§ Mr. Frank FieldTo ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will request his Department's Social Services186W inspectorate to carry out a study of the arrangements for health care in non-statutory residential care homes similar to its review of arrangements for health care in local authority residential homes for elderly people carried out in 1986.
§ Mr. MellorThe social services inspectorate carried out an exercise to examine the use made by local authorities of guidance issued by the Department some years ago. Such guidance has not been formally issued to non-statutory homes and we therefore have no plans to carry out a similar exercise there. We are now considering, in the light of the report on local authority homes, what further action we need to take to ensure good standards of health care in all residential care homes, including those in the non-statutory sector.