Respite Care (Hansard, 20 January 2004)

§ 21. Mr. Gordon Marsden
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps his Department is taking to promote respite care. [148805]

§ Dr. Ladyman
The Government are committed to seeing a range of services available locally for people who need services and their carers.
The carers grant has provided an extra £325 million since 1999 to support local councils in arranging breaks services for carers.

§ Charles Hendry
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what role he envisages for the private sector in providing respite care facilities for people with learning difficulties. [148687]

§ Dr. Ladyman
The private sector has an important role in providing respite care and short break services for people with learning disabilities and we envisage that this will continue to be the case. Respite care and short break services should provide high quality and flexible support to people with learning disabilities and their families. Such support can be provided in different ways by agencies from a variety of sectors including the private sector. People with learning disabilities can also use direct payments to directly purchase for themselves services, from a variety of sources, to meet their assessed needs include respite care and short breaks.