Adult Social Care: Funding

Debate between Lord Skelmersdale and Lord O'Shaughnessy

Thursday 16th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

The noble Baroness is quite right that this issue has not been dealt with properly over a long time. The Green Paper has a wide remit and therefore will look at all the issues that she has brought to the attention of the House.

[Lord Skelmersdale]

My Lords, in a recent answer to a supplementary question, the Minister agreed with me that social care and health would operate properly only when they were under the same budget. Will the Green Paper go a little further and consider bringing them under the same management?

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

As I said to the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, the Green Paper has a wide remit. It is trying to provide a comprehensive solution to social care funding, which has unfortunately eluded many Governments. In doing so, it naturally needs to look particularly at the interaction between health and social care. For many people now there is no particular distinction between those as they follow their journey, as it were, through the health and care system. The important thing is that the care is joined up and is of high quality.

Hospital Beds: Availability

Debate between Lord Skelmersdale and Lord O'Shaughnessy

Thursday 9th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

My Lords, the figures that the noble Lord is referring to are across the whole month. He may be aware that new figures have been published today, which show that an increasing proportion of delayed transfers is due to the availability of social care packages. He will also know that this reflects the changing nature of the patient demographic, which is becoming older and frailer. I agree with him that this needs addressing urgently, which is why the Government took action in the Autumn Statement to increase social care funding. We need to address the wide variation in the rate of delayed discharge from local authority to local authority. As the Prime Minister has said, in the long run we need a more sustainable solution.

[Lord Skelmersdale (Con)]

My Lords, although all Governments have made great strides in recent years in combining health and social care, is it not now obvious that the only way to complete this process is to have a unified budget?

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I thank my noble friend for that question. He is quite right that integration of services is the main thrust of policy and has been under successive Governments. This is happening in two ways. First, the Better Care Fund is pooling health and social care budgets at local authority level in order to achieve what he is asking for. Also, NHS England is producing sustainability and transformation plans, several of which are moving towards what is called an accountable care organisation, whereby a single grouping takes responsibility for all the healthcare needs of a population, rather than it being split into different services.