WIREDGOV

The Patients Association has responded to the announcement of an extra £240 million for social care by repeating its call for sustainable funding of social care, and an ambitious approach to health and social care over the next ten years.

Rachel Power, Chief Executive of the Patients Association, said: “With social care in long-term crisis, any additional funding is of course welcome. But yet another short-term top-up for social care shows how bad things have got, and how urgently we need a sustainable long-term solution to the care crisis.

“The forthcoming green paper absolutely must set a course to a social care system that is properly funded and works for everyone who needs it. It must also avoid the trap of seeing social care simply as a way of keeping pressure off the NHS, which reports of the extra funding appear to fall into. Social care provides essential support in daily living to many people, and is vitally important in its own right.

“In our response to NHS England’s proposals for a ten year plan for the NHS, we call on it to show ambition, and recognise that health and wellbeing are public goods that we must curate carefully as a society. Social care is an equally important component in this, and the ten year plan and green paper must, together, offer a coherent vision for the future.”

The Patients Association recently submitted a response to NHS England’s consultation on a ten year plan for the NHS, and also a representation to the Treasury ahead of this month’s Budget.

Key calls from the two papers include:

• Increasing the share of our national wealth spent on health and wellbeing
• Greater sharing of risk across the population in respect of social care needs - this will mean a greater element of tax funding for social care
• Cross-government action on health and wellbeing, including not just the NHS and social care but also housing, welfare benefits, public health, human rights and education, possibly led by a new Cabinet Committee to ensure all government policy is pulling in the same direction
• Consistent working on equal partnership between the NHS and other services on the one hand, and patients and service users on the other - this must apply both in the delivery of care and in the planning and design of services. 

For more information, read Rachel's blog post on the NHS ten year plan.

Also available are our full response to the consultation on the NHS ten year plan, and submission to the Treasury ahead of the Budget.