| SPOTLIGHT |
The NHS Confederation has called on the NHS and local government to work closer together to provide social care, with its deputy director of policy warning that simply shunting costs from one part of the system to the other would be a “totally inadequate response” to the challenge of caring for elderly people.
Speaking at the National Children and Adult Services Conference yesterday, Jo Webber said the NHS and local government needed to join forces and change services in a bid to get “the maximum bang for every buck on behalf of service users”.
Webber acknowledged that the NHS Confederation and many people in local government were concerned about the impact of the current public spending round on social care.
“But the challenge of difficult financial times is one we simply have to prove equal to,” she said. “The answer will lie in ever closer working between local government and the NHS, a willingness to consider pooled budgets, innovations like telecare and the savings and improved co-ordination which personalised budgets can bring.”
Webber admitted that “none of this is going to be easy”, predicting that this winter was likely to bring the first real test of the impact the spending squeeze would have on the vulnerable and elderly, and the services they rely on.
She added: "Simply shunting costs from one part of the system will prove to be a totally inadequate response to the challenge of caring for elderly people.
“The only way we get the maximum bang for every buck on behalf of service users will be to work closer together and squeeze as much value as possible from the money available for social care."
