Personal Care at Home Bill

I apologise to the noble Baroness. I had marked up answers to a lot of her questions and I believe I have now found some of them. The latest figures show that 28,116 intermediate care places benefited 132,720 people between April and June 2008. Compared with 1999-2000, the number of intermediate care beds has doubled, and the number of intermediate care places in non-residential settings has trebled. Three times as many people are benefiting from intermediate care. The NHS Plan aimed for an extra 6,700 places for intermediate care by March 2005—5,000 residential and 1,700 non-residential—and today the NHS has delivered an extra 22,948 places. In her previous question, the noble Baroness raised the issue of the guidance. The original guidance has been strengthened to include flexibility over the period of an intermediate care episode—which I think is the point that she raised. That will ensure that people with dementia have access to intermediate care, with that care being commissioned across health and social care, and that reablement services are part of the commissioned service, widening access to intermediate care to include all adult age groups, not just older people.