NHS White Paper

Margot James Excerpts

Monday 12th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Members really should not chunter, witter or otherwise heckle from a sedentary position, because they thereby reduce their chances of getting in, or of their colleagues getting in.

[Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)]

Older people and people with long-term medical conditions have not been well served by the division between health and social care, which has lasted many years. I congratulate the Secretary of State on his plan to give local authorities control over local health improvement budgets. Can he say any more about how those reforms will break down the barriers between health and social care?

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s question. There is an unprecedented opportunity for local authorities and the NHS to create a much more integrated and effective strategy for health and social care working together. That is partly about focusing on outcomes, partly about listening to patients, and partly about extending personal budgets for patients, so that they themselves can break down such barriers. However, critically, it is also about local authorities exercising the responsibility that we will give them, plus their existing powers in relation to well-being right across their areas, to seal that working together, to deliver better public health and better integration between their social care responsibility and NHS commissioning plans.