Care England, the largest representative body for independent providers of adult social care, has renewed its calls for structured plans to integrate health and social care.
This week, the BBC programme, Hospital, depicted an NHS hospital in crisis. Patients were left on trolleys and routine operations cancelled. What seemed to be lacking was any cross sector planning that could have averted or diminished this crisis.
Many of the people who were occupying beds in the acute hospital, could have been discharged into care homes in the local area and there was capacity available to do this. Despite all the talk of integrated systems, the documentary clearly showed that the NHS is unable to plan across the system and is then going into a crisis which could have been averted.
Professor Martin Green OBE, chief executive of Care England says: “Despite endless talk about integration, the BBC displayed in technicolour that the NHS was failing to engage social care effectively and going into a crisis. We need to see the NHS auditing all potential services within its locality and using them effectively to avert cancelled operations and inappropriate admissions”.
Care England’s call comes at a time when 21 chairs of select committees have written to the Prime Minister calling for a cross party commission on health and social care.
