Faster progress required to meet the needs of individuals

A new report from the National Audit Office has urged for further and faster progress towards a health service that centres on the needs of individuals, meets growing demands for care and delivers value to the taxpayer.

The health and social care interface assesses the challenges preventing health and social care from working together effectively, recognising both the change in needs of both services since the creation of the NHS in 1948 and how the separation between them has remained, despite an increasingly ageing population and continued rises in demand.

The report finds that the financial pressure that the NHS and local government are under makes closer working between them difficult, with uncertainty affecting effective planning, often diverting them from focusing on efforts to transform services. Although the report acknowledges the recent announcement of extra funding for the NHS, it says that additional funding is regularly used to address financial pressures rather than to make essential changes to services or adopt new technologies. Problems with sharing data across health and social care can also prevent an individual’s care from being coordinated smoothly.

Amyas Morse, the head of the NAO, argued that, with social care now accounting for over 50 per cent of local authorities’ overall spending, it is vital that the NHS and local government work effectively together to support person-centred care.

He said: “No one across government or the civil service would disagree that health and social care have to be in balance to give people quality of life, and to use the available national and local resources as efficiently as possible. The hard part is agreeing how that balance is to be achieved and maintained, and who is willing to sacrifice what to bring it about. “The NHS did not like funds being syphoned off through the better care fund, whilst local government has reservations about sacrificing over half of its financial resources towards NHS England’s priorities, which risks eroding local democracy. The answer may lie in local flexibility, but that could leave serious gaps in delivering what is needed – an integrated service. Serious political leadership is needed.”