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    Tag Archives: Integrating Health and Social Care

    By Eric Leach in NHS reorganisation

    The Integration of Healthcare and Social Care is a Failure

    November 1, 2017

    Failed attempts to integrate healthcare services and social care services go back a long way. The National Health Service Act 1977 under Jim Callaghan’s government encouraged Health Authorities and local authorities to co-operate. The Health Act 1999 allowed NHS bodies to pool budgets. Successive governments have again and again tried to pull NHS bodies and local authorities closer together. However, it’s been 40 years of failure. The House of Commons has been busy recently churning out extremely helpful and informative impartial briefing papers on various aspect of care. I’ve drawn heavily on one of these papers in this piece – ‘Health and […]
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    By Jeannie in Social Care

    Damning indictment of the Tory approach on the NHS/Social Care

    April 27, 2017

    Committee of Public Accounts Summary of report on Integrating health and social care: Integration of health and social care services offers the prospect of improving both patient outcomes and value for money for the taxpayer. Two years ago, we expressed serious doubt that the government’s latest integration initiative, the Better Care Fund (the Fund), would save money, reduce emergency admissions to hospitals and reduce the number of days people remain stuck in hospital unnecessarily. Since then the Fund has failed to achieve any of these objectives and our witnesses displayed an appallingly casual attitude to the targets that had been set […]
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    By Clive Miller in Social Care

    Integration: harnessing the power of co-production

    March 11, 2015

    Baseline integration                  At last the government seems serious about pushing for health and social care integration in England. Integrated Care and Support: Our Shared Commitment[1], backed by a collaboration of national partners outlines a 5 year road map and pioneer areas are now beings selected. Integration will take place at a number of linked levels from overall macro commissioning, through workforce development and quality assurance to service redesign and the integration of services around the needs of individuals. The baseline for integration will incorporate a range of changes including: Alignment – where […]
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    By Mark Burton in Social Care

    What do we already know about Integrating Health and Social Care?

    February 3, 2015

    Background For thirty years (from June, 1982) I worked in Manchester’s services for people who are intellectually disabled (usually termed learning disability in the UK, but nowhere else).  I worked as a practitioner, a developer of services, a researcher, a head of professional services and ultimately (for 8 years until March 2012) as the manager of integrated health and social care for learning disabled adults.  My commitment to work in the city of Manchester was complemented by national and international networking that helped me to take a wider perspective on the peculiarities of what we did locally and also how […]
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    By Andy Burnham in Labour Health Policy, NHS reorganisation, Social Care

    A One Nation Approach To Health And Social Care

    October 30, 2013

    Chapter 8 of The Socialist Way, edited by Roy Hattersley and Kevin Hickson For the first time in 20 years, our party has the chance to rethink its health and care policy from first principles. Whatever your political views, it’s a big moment. It presents the chance to change the terms of the health and care debate. For too long, it has been trapped on narrow ground, in tech­nical debates about regulation, commissioning and competition. It is struggling to come up with credible answers to the questions that the twenty-first century is asking with ever-greater urgency. I want to change […]
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    By Ian Greener in NHS Commissioning, NHS Funding

    Submission to Inquiry into the Effectiveness of Health Systems

    June 27, 2013

    Health systems financing Allocating financing to healthcare is fairest through general taxation (hence the UK’s strong scores in international comparisons on this criterion), but the risk is of healthcare being systemically underfunded (as it has been through most of the history of the NHS), or, especially in an era of political austerity, of need becoming detached from what is politically expedient to allocate. General taxation funding, however, appears the lesser of the evils available as this is likely to lead to a fairer healthcare service. Changes to the provision of services. The purchaser/provider split has been a massive source of […]
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    By Thomas Ferguson in Advertisment, Complementary and Alternative medicine, Old people

    Supporting the Elderly Within a Failing Health Service

    June 17, 2013

    One of the most damning criticisms of our NHS services is its failure to provide adequate care for elderly patients. Numerous complaints have been made to the Health Service Ombudsman about specific instances of neglect or abuse, of which 10 cases were specifically outlined to demonstrate the failings of various NHS provisions. It’s clear from these cases alone that our current NHS health care system is woefully incapable of providing geriatric health care which is of a consistently high standard. So how will the current and proposed NHS reforms impact this already failing system? The True Cost of Impersonal Care […]
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    By g.collis248 in Health Care, Labour Health Policy, Social Care

    21st Century NHS and Social Care – Delivering Integration

    June 6, 2013

    Labour Health and Care Policy Commission – UNISON submission, May 2013 Submission produced by the UNISON Policy Unit Introduction UNISON has the largest health membership and the largest social care membership of any trade union in the UK, representing around 450,000 healthcare staff and 300,000 social care staff employed in the NHS and local government, and by private contractors, the voluntary sector and GPs. UNISON members include nurses, social workers, occupational therapists, health visitors, midwives, healthcare assistants, care assistants, personal assistants, paramedics, medical secretaries, cleaners, porters, catering staff, and the wider health and social care workforce. With a total membership […]
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    By profandrewgray201 in Health Care, Social Care

    Integrated Care for the Vulnerable: the technical, organisational and political challenges

    November 5, 2012

    Synopsis of talk by Professor Andrew Gray (Academic Services for Public Management) at University of York/Socialist Health Association seminar 15 October 2012 The talk begins with three case stories of integrated care – or the lack of it. The first is of Bill and Annie, a couple in their 80s. He has terminal cancer but is mentally alert. She has accelerating vascular dementia for which she is prescribed drugs that are enabling her to retain some cognitive functions (she recognises her family but needs assistance in looking after herself. They have become part of the increasing numbers who are mixed economy consumers of health and social […]
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