WIREDGOV

Cllr David Fothergill, Chairman of the Local Government Association’s Community Wellbeing Board, responded to the Government’s white paper for Health and Care Integration 

“The LGA strongly supports the Government’s ambition for joining up health and care services to get better outcomes for individuals and communities. We are pleased to see the important role councils play in joining up health and care services is recognised in this paper, as well as the focus on prevention and providing care and support to people in community settings.

“The LGA has long argued for a strong role for place-based leadership of care and health. We believe that integrated care systems should develop their place-based arrangements on existing local authority boundaries since many of the components of joined up working already exist at this level. 

“Adult social care is in a fragile position, with councils struggling to balance budgets and services severely impacted by rising costs and recruitment issues. A long-term funding solution is urgently needed in order to ensure a sustainable, high quality and sufficient care and health workforce to meet needs now and going forward.

“We will continue to work with Government to ensure that councils have the resources and capacity to deliver place-based integration, better outcomes and better services for people and communities.”

Patients to receive better care as NHS and social care systems link up