A leading think tank and care provider leaders have both called for social care to be given access to patient data-sharing this week. Will the government dare to take a bold step to allow genuine joined-up care for our vulnerable older people?
I’ve been struck this week by a very clear example of yet another opportunity to create a bridge across what the King's Fund called a ‘no-man’s land’ between health and social care provision seemingly being dodged yet again by policy-makers, and left wondering (not for the first time): why?
At the start of the week, the government chose to highlight the benefits of its new NHS Modernisation legislation for older people via the introduction of a single patient record, yet stopped short of allowing that data to be shared with social care providers outside of the NHS.
It said that frailty was one of the areas being prioritised for ‘enhanced information sharing’ from ‘as early as’ next year, and was lauded by leading geriatricians who welcomed its potential for medics to be able to “wrap ourselves around the patient rather than the patient wrapping themselves around us”.
However, the fact that the legislation will only require NHS providers to share information has been criticised by care leaders, with Care England chief executive Professor Martin Green calling for adult social care providers to be included in the new duty to share information “with the detail of how that is achieved worked out in genuine consultation with the sector”.
So why are the fundamental building blocks that would allow health and social care for vulnerable groups to be genuinely joined-up around the person receiving care never put in place? Despite numerous attempts over many years to encourage health and care providers to work together to meet an older person’s needs, why do we end up in battles over who should pay, which organisation is accountable and who gets access to the tools needed to do their job properly?
The King's Fund set out in its paper published this week that the ‘no-man’s land’ between health and social care can be partly addressed in the short term within the current system by clearer access routes, fairer Continuing Health Care (CHC) processes and – you guessed it - stronger information sharing.
Perhaps this clear unified voice from respected, leading policy and provider voices will finally be heard as the Bill works its way through parliament. Otherwise, a key opportunity to pave the way for further, more far-reaching reform to fix the creaking social care system could well have been lost.
