Future of Health and Care

Lord Kakkar Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

The noble Baroness is right that there are distinctive qualities to social care and medical care, but the lived experience of most patients and residents is that those living in social care are very often heavy consumers of the NHS. As far as most of them are concerned, the support and treatment they are given needs to be much more closely linked. For instance, it is a strange anomaly that many living in residential social care have a completely different budget and sometimes completely different staff providing their medical treatment and their care treatment. This is not a functional distinction that we are seeking to overturn; what we are seeking is to get those teams of people and the decisions made about the care of individuals working much more closely together. We are not seeking to introduce a revolution in the funding of social care, and the financing of social care by local authorities and private individuals will continue, but we would like to see the distinction between social care and NHS medical care become more seamless, more joined up and, therefore, more effective.

[Lord Kakkar (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I draw attention to my registered interests. The justification for any reorganisation of the health and care system must be to improve patient and population outcomes. The current system, which has been unable to deliver the benefits of integrated care, is heavily regulated on the basis of distinct institutional boundaries and care settings. How do Her Majesty’s Government propose to address the regulatory impediment to the successful delivery of integrated care as part of the proposed reorganisation?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord is entirely right that the regulation of both clinical care and social care is critical and key not only to good performance by both sectors but to the way in which they work together. That is why we will look at the CQC and its role in social care regulation. We will seek to enhance the way in which the CQC can look deeply into social care to set higher standards and to ensure that, when it comes to integrated care, social care is stepping up to the challenge as best it can.