Longer term investment needed for community services

The Community Network has warned that, without greater investment and support from the government, community healthcare services are at risk.

Community healthcare services have been critical in preventing hospitals from becoming overwhelmed during the coronavirus pandemic and in allowing people to receive the care they need closer to and within their own homes.

However, the Community Network, which represents community healthcare services across England and is hosted by the NHS Confederation and NHS Providers, says that without greater investment and support from the government, their vital contribution is at risk as the NHS braces itself for a challenging winter including the possibility of a second wave of the disease.

In a new report, the network states that despite the longstanding challenges facing community services with significant workforce vacancies and demand outstripping capacity, providers have adapted quickly to coronavirus and prepared their services to meet people’s needs during the pandemic.

Last month, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that £3 billion will be given to the NHS to help it cope during what is expected to be a very difficult winter period, of which £500 million will portioned off to support the discharge of patients from hospital and into the community. The Community Network believes that longer term support and investment is needed to allow community healthcare services to continue to respond effectively to the greatest challenge the NHS has ever faced, while advancing the national ambition to provide more services closer to where people live.

It is calling on the government to give the community healthcare services additional funding to manage these competing demands and also, to invest more in public health and social care, which have similarly experienced funding cuts that can impact on the sector. Additionally, the network is urging the Department of Health and Social Care to help boost the community workforce with a national recruitment campaign and deploying more returners to their services before winter pressures hit.

Andrew Ridley, chair of the Community Network, said: “Over the past few months, community healthcare services have shown their value, flexibility and resilience by playing a critical role in preventing the NHS from becoming overwhelmed in the face of the greatest crisis of modern times. This has been particularly remarkable given that community health services entered the pandemic under considerable pressure due to rising demand, workforce shortages and increasingly complex patient needs.

“The cash injection announced recently by the government to support community healthcare services over winter was welcome but it is a sticking plaster for the longer term support and investment that this sector desperately needs. Without additional funding, including for social care and public health, and the workforce to deliver its services, there is the real risk that discharge arrangements will be compromised and hospitals could become overwhelmed. We need realism about what these services will be able to deliver safely in the next stage of the pandemic.

“More broadly, the experiences of the pandemic must be used as a catalyst for change to reset how services are delivered and to reinvigorate the national ambition to provide more care closer to people’s own homes.”