Social Care and Support: Funding

Baroness Howarth of Breckland Excerpts

Monday 19th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

What we are saying is that we have to fundamentally transform the health and social care sector so that it is fit for the kinds of patients living in today’s society, not those living in, frankly, 1948.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)]

My Lords, it seems an extraordinarily unreal situation—the present circumstances that people find themselves in. Day after day, as the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, pointed out, we hear about people having their hours cut, people finding that they no longer have carers and local authorities having huge cuts in their budgets. What is the Government’s plan if we do not get the settlement that we need from the spending review?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

I am afraid that I can only repeat what I said earlier: our plan is for health and social care to become more integrated and for more budgets to be pooled, and that by doing so we can transform the care we deliver to the very vulnerable people in our society.