Adult Social Care Debate
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Baroness Meacher
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Adult Social Care
Baroness Meacher Excerpts(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Meacher (CB)
My Lords, I recognise that the Government are understandably very concerned about public expenditure, but I wonder whether they have recently undertaken a cost-benefit analysis of spending on social care. For £1 million of additional spending on social care, what would be the savings to the health budget? I have a feeling that it could be at least £1 million, and possibly rather more.
Lord Markham (Con)
Absolutely, and that is the whole intention behind the ICSs: the ability in their areas to know local needs and invest in the right places—that is, in social care rather than having people in beds in hospitals, because it is a much more effective use of resources, and also in primary care. We all know that a lot of people go to A&E because they have not got primary care services, so the whole point of the ICSs is that they start to invest where demand is in the area, rather than using hospitals as the place of last resort to go to.