§ Mr. BestTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what action he is taking to monitor changes in home care charges. [82810]
§ Jacqui SmithMonitoring of the implementation of this policy is being carried out by the Department's social services inspectorate as part of a wider in-year monitoring programme. Councils were asked to indicate the stage of preparation reached at 31 May 2002 in implementing the policy. This exercise was repeated in Autumn 2002 and the results are currently being processed and should be available at the end of December 2002. The process will be repeated again in Spring 2003.