NHS: Hospital Overcrowding

Lord Watts Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, clearly it must make more sense to provide better treatment for elderly people in their homes, away from hospitals, particularly for those with often multiple long-term conditions. One of the tragedies of government policy since 2000—this goes across both parties—is that, although the rhetoric has been about moving care out of hospitals into the community, it has been extremely difficult to do it.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that, although they may not be the only cause, the cuts in social care have had a profound effect on overcrowding in our hospitals? Would it not be a good idea to reverse those cuts and take some of the pressures away from our hospitals?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, I think it is well understood that the integration of healthcare and social care is hugely important and that the two cannot be seen in isolation. It will be very interesting to see how things develop in Manchester, where we are going to see an experiment in the integration of health and social care on a very large scale.