Future of Health and Care

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

When you go to Burnley, Secretary of State, I know you will also put Ribble Valley, Chorley and a few other places on your list.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab) [V]]

The Secretary of State may be aware that before I returned to Parliament, I had some involvement with the establishment of the Greater Manchester model of health and social care. Can I offer him two insights from that? First, social care is clearly not yet funded in the way that is needed if we are to have proper integration. Secondly, it was possible to have a Greater Manchester strategic level for the nearly 3 million people of the conurbation, but to have integration and delivery at the district level. On the integrated care systems, will he guarantee that there will be nothing that prevents the very successful model that Greater Manchester is already pioneering?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes. The changes in Greater Manchester, in which the hon. Gentleman had an important role, are a good example of where we can drive this sort of integration. I can confirm that nothing I am proposing would get in the way of that. In fact, I hope that the changes in the White Paper will help areas that, like Greater Manchester, are already some way along this journey to go further, and will support them by ensuring there are fewer legislative barriers to the sorts of actions that they want to take. That includes both the measures across the NHS and the integration between health and social care.