Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to improve access to local NHS services for older people.

Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for commissioning healthcare services that meet the needs of their local populations. When ICBs exercise their functions, they have a duty to reduce inequalities between persons with respect to their ability to access health services and to reduce inequalities between patients with respect to the outcomes achieved for them by the provision of health services.

Further, as part of the Government’s five long-term missions, we have launched a 10-Year Health Plan to reform the National Health Service and make it fit for the future.

The 10-Year Health Plan will deliver the three big shifts our NHS needs to be fit for the future: from hospital to community; from analogue to digital; and from sickness to prevention. All of these are relevant to improving support for older people in all parts of the country.

More care and support delivered in the community, better joint working between services, and greater use of apps and wearable technology will all support patients closer to home.

The 10-Year Health Plan will also set the vision for what good joined-up care looks like for people with a combination of health and care needs, such as older people.  It will set out how to support and enable health and social care services, and wider services, to work together better to provide that joined-up care.