I can assure you that the Government is taking action to support care homes so they can continue to provide compassionate quality care to residents. My colleagues and I understand that care homes must be able to continue the incredible support and comfort they offer.
Care homes have benefitted from the Government's Energy Bill Relief Scheme (EBRS), which has reduced expenditure on energy and offered certainty over their budgets. The EBRS ended in April 2023 and has since been replaced by the Energy Bill Discount Scheme (EBDS) which will run until March 2024. The EBRS provided £7 billion of support over the course of the scheme. The EBDS will continue to support care homes by providing a discount on gas and electricity unit prices.
The Chancellor made a number of spending commitments at the Autumn Statement in 2022 to put the adult social care system in England on a stronger financial footing and improve the quality of and access to care for many of the most vulnerable in our society. The Government will make available up to £2.8 billion in 2023-24 in England and £4.7 billion in 2024-25 to help support adult social care and discharge. This includes £1 billion of new grant funding in 2023-24 and £1.7 billion in 2024-25, further flexibility for local authorities on council tax and, having heard the concerns of local government, delaying the rollout of adult social care charging reform until October 2025.
In April 2023, the Government published a refreshed plan to bolster the adult social care workforce, speed up discharge from hospital and accelerate the use of technology in the sector over the next two years. Alongside these reform commitments, the Better Care Fund, which brings together health, social care and housing to help older people and those with complex needs live at home for longer, will increase from £7.7 billion in 2022 to £8.1 billion in 2023 and £8.7 billion in 2024. The total fund includes £1.6 billion to improve hospital discharge arrangements - £600 million next year and £1 billion the year following.
This is part of the Government’s wider commitments to support adult social care services, backed by up to £7.5 billion over the next two years to help local authorities address waiting lists and workforce pressures in the sector, as announced in the Autumn Statement in 2022.