Daniel Zeichner – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Daniel Zeichner on 2015-12-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what proportion of councils have had at least one residential, domiciliary or specialist care provider fail in the last 12 months.

Alistair Burt

The Government does not collect this information.

Under the Care Act 2014, local authorities have statutory responsibilities to temporarily meet the needs of individuals and their carers should their provider fail.

The Act also gave the Care Quality Commission (CQC) a new function to oversee the finances of care providers which are either large or whose provision is geographically concentrated as their financial failure would make it difficult for local authorities to discharge their statutory responsibilities.

The oversight function will provide early warning to relevant local authorities in the event that one of these providers is likely to fail and their services cease. This will allow local authorities time to implement contingency plans.

The CQC have not made any such notifications to local authorities.