Draft Care and Support Bill

The RCN has played a significant role in the debate around social care reform due to the key roles nursing staff play working within and across the health and social care systems.

The Draft Care and Support Bill was published by the Department of Health on 11 July 2012. The draft bill aims to consolidate law for adult care and support. The bill was published in draft format to allow public consultation. This consultation is now closed and the responses are being analysed by the Department of Health bill team.

For further information on the Draft Care and Support Bill please visit www.careandsupportbill.dh.gov.uk.

The RCN's response

The RCN welcomes the Goverment's commitment to reforming the social care system and welcomes certain aspects of the reforms, such as:

• creating a preventative social care system
• a new code of conduct and minimum standards for care workers
• references to joint working and providing integrated services
• the creation of Health Education England (HEE).

However, there are some aspects of the draft bill about which the RCN has some concerns, including:

• a lack of commitment to social care funding
• the absence in legislation of the need for registered staff and multidisciplinary team input into assessments
• lack of incentives to encourage integrated working consistency
• the absence of long-term focus for HEE in workplace planning
• lack of provision for the mandatory regulation of health care support workers.

The RCN has submitted the following responses to the Department of Health consultation:

• RCN submission to the Draft Care and Support Bill, part 1 (PDF 225KB) (October 2012) [See: How to access pdf files]
• RCN submission to the Draft Care and Support Bill, part 2 (PDF 286KB) (October 2012) [See: How to access pdf files]

As part of the legislative process, the draft bill was scrutinised by a Joint Committee, made up of Members of Parliament and Peers from the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The committee is due to report on their findings by 7 March 2013.

The RCN has submitted the following evidence to the Joint Committee:

Joint Committee on the Draft Care and Support Bill submission (PDF 220KB) (January 2013) [See: How to access pdf files]