Current status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 20 May 2022
To ask the Scottish Government whether it has considered providing additional support for care homes to prevent closures as a result of the cost of living crisis.
The Scottish Government is aware of the pressures impacting on all sectors.
The National Care Home Contract determines the rates paid for residential care by Local Authorities. This is negotiated annually by COSLA, Scottish Care and Scotland Excel, the Scottish Government is not a contractual party to this agreement. However we are aware that the cost of living crisis was discussed and an agreement was reached to recognise some of the pressures.
To support care homes to recruit and retain staff we have funded an increase in the minimum hourly rate for those providing direct Adult Social Care rose to £10.50 p/h. This represents an increase 12.9% for these workers in the course of a year.
Additionally by the end of this Parliament we will have budgeted over £800m of increased annual support for social care compared to current spending. We continue to provide NHS Boards and Integration Authorities with the funding they require to meet the cost of responding to the pandemic, which comes on top of the £1.7bn already provided to Health Boards and Health and Social Care Partnerships in 2020-21.