Peter Dowd – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Peter Dowd on 2016-04-28.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the effect of changes to local authority social care budgets on the demand for health services.
Alistair Burt
The Government is aware of the important link between social care and the health service. This is why it has given local authorities access to up to £3.5 billion of new support for adult social care by 2019/20. This should mean local government has access to the funding it needs to increase social care spending by the end of the Parliament. This funding includes an additional £1.5 billion a year for the Better Care Fund by the end of the Parliament.
The Better Care Fund creates a local single pooled budget to incentivise the National Health Service and local government to work more closely together, placing people’s wellbeing as the focus of health and care services, and shifting resources into social care and community services for the benefit of the people, communities and health and care systems. Integrated care is the right way to deliver a sustainable health and social care system that can provide better quality care and improve outcomes for individuals.
