MPs support health and social care integration
pharmafile | February 10, 2012 | News story | Sales and Marketing | NHS, social care
The integration of care services will help improve outcomes for older people and those with disabilities and long-term conditions, according to the Common’s Health Select Committee.
The committee’s new report says integrated Care Trusts are an existing example that the approach can work. The MPs say each geographical area should establish a single commissioner whose job will be to decide how the “different pots of money that are spent on older people” will be used.
The same needs to be put in place at national level, the report goes on, with the government co-ordinating policy and spending across health, housing and care services.
The King’s Fund supports this conclusion, saying that delivering integrated care must be given the same priority over the next decade as reducing waiting times was given over the last.
“Successive governments have talked about the need to integrate health and social care but have failed to make it happen,” says the think tank’s senior fellow Richard Humphries.
The NHS, social care and social housing are most often used by older people, who may have several different needs at the same time.
For instance, they may have a long-term health condition that requires monitoring, require help from the council with things like washing or dressing, and have a requirement for warm housing.
Funding this is a problem with which governments worldwide are now grappling: chronic diseases are the leading cause of death and disability in most of the world, accounting for an estimated 75% of global healthcare spend.
The government’s proposed radical health reforms do not address the issue adequately, the committee says: “[We do] not believe that the proposals in the Health and Social Care Bill will simplify this process.”
“Trying to define NHS care and social care as two separate and distinct things will only make matters worse for older people,” it adds.
Instead, the government must develop a single outcomes framework for older people to replace the three “overlapping but confusing frameworks that currently exist”.
It also warns that the coalition has to deal with the pressure in the system on the amount of money needed to care for people and the amount that is actually available to do so.
“The Committee is also right to highlight pressures on services as a result of cuts in local authority funding,” Humphries agrees.
“Our research suggests that a funding gap of at least £1.2 billion could open up by 2014 unless councils can achieve unprecedented efficiency savings,” he points out.
Finally, the think tank welcomes the select committee’s acceptance of the findings of last year’s Dilnot Commission: Dilnot recommended sharing the cost of care in old age between individuals and the state, with people paying for their care until a cap of £35,000 is reached, after which the state pays.
The government needs to “outline its proposals for responding to the Dilnot Commission on how the individual contribution to their care costs can be made in a manner that is fair and equitable”, the report says.
Adam Hill
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