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Widespread welcome for coordinated care commitment

NHS organisations and commentators have broadly welcomed the new vision for coordinated care announced today by care minister Norman Lamb.

Commissioned by NHS England, the commitment was developed with service users by National Voices and partners.

Don Redding, National Voices’ director of policy, said: “Coordinated care is a top priority for patients and service users, such as people with long term conditions and those living with disabilities. They, carers and their family members are all fed up with having to navigate a confusing system at the most stressful time of our lives.

“The Health & Social Care Act brought new duties on organisations to deliver more integrated care. But legal duties don’t explain how to do it. Patients and service users want the focus to be on coordinating our personal care. This is about great management, about keeping all efforts focused on patients and carers and fantastic teamwork across organisations and departments.”

Chris Ham, chief executive of The King’s Fund, said: “To meet the needs of an ageing population and transform services for the growing number of people with long term conditions, it is essential that co-ordinating care and support becomes the core business of everyone working in the NHS and social care. So today’s announcement is an important statement of intent from the government and the organisations signed up to the shared commitment on integrated care and support.

“The announcement signals a step change by beginning the process of identifying pioneer areas to lead the way in providing integrated care at scale and pace. Feedback from our work with local health and social care leaders indicates that some aspects of current policy and regulation are acting as barriers to delivering co-ordinated care. This should be addressed by giving pioneer areas freedoms and flexibilities to overcome these restrictions when they are rolled out from September.

“The NHS and social care face huge challenges – addressing financial pressures and improving quality of care in the short term, and meeting the challenges posed by demographic change and changing health needs in the long term. This demands new thinking and radical changes to services.”

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