"My observations confirm that the care home staff are often poorly paid. The commitment to raise the living wage will, in my opinion, have a real benefit in this group of staff whose work is often under appreciated. Care homes need to receive enough income to sustain investment in staff pay, training and development.

In my opinion the Health and Social care budgets need to be brought together so that taxpayers money is spent more wisely. There are opportunities for efficiency savings by doing this.

For example it is not sensible to have people, who are medically fit for discharge, stuck waiting in an hospital bed, which is very expensive, because local authorities do not have the resources to quickly get such people placed in a Care home, where costs are much less than in hospital. "