Long-term Care (Hansard, 13 February 2004)

§ Mr. Burstow
To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to his answer of 30 January 2004,Official Report, column 559W on long-term care, if he will place in the Library copies of the survey and estimates by the Personal Social Services Research Unit referred to in the explanatory note. [154633]

§ Dr. Ladyman
In the explanatory note referred to in my answer of 30 January 2004,Official Report, column 559W, the estimate of the proportion of privately funded older care home residents receiving disability benefits is from Netten A., Darton R. and Curtis L. (2002). Self-Funded Admissions to Care Homes. A report of research carried out by the Personal Social Services Research Unit (PSSRU), University of Kent on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions, (Department for Work and Pensions Research Report No. 159). A copy of this report is available in the Library.
The estimate of private expenditure on private home care was obtained from PSSRU. It derives from research on projections of demand for long-term care for older people. A copy of a recent discussion paper on this PSSRU study—Comas-Herrera A., Pickard L., Wittenberg R. et al. (2003) Future demand for long-term care, 20[...]1 to 2031: projections of demand for older people in England, PSSRU discussion paper 1980—will be placed in the Library.

§ Mr. Burstow
To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to the answer of 30 January 2004,Official Report, column 559W, on long-term care, what the basis is of the assumption in the explanatory note that there are 58,000 privately funded residents of residential care homes in England. [155967]

§ Dr. Ladyman
The figure of 58,000 is an estimate in the absence of data on numbers of privately funded residents in residential care homes. There were around 120,000 older local authority supported residents in independent sector care homes in March 2003. The "PSSRU 1996 Survey of Care Homes for Elderly People", www.pssru.ac.uk/pdf/dp1423[...]2.pdf, found that around one third of older residents of independent sector residential care homes were privately funded. This suggests that an estimate of around 58,000 is reasonable.

§ Mr. Burstow
To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to the answer of 20 January 2004,Official Report, column 1110W , on long-term care, whether the Department's proposals in response to the Royal Commission, including free nursing care and changes to the residential charging rules, will have changed these costs. [155968]

§ Dr. Ladyman
The estimated cost of £1.5 billion for England covers only the cost of free personal care and excludes the cost of free nursing care, as that has been implemented. The estimate would have been higher if free nursing care had been included. In principle, this also applies to the 12-week disregard of housing assets and the uprating of the capital limits which the Government announced in their response to the Royal Commission. The estimate of around 100,000 privately 285W funded residents used in the calculation should in principle have been higher if these changes had not been implemented.