Integrating Health and Social Care

Diana Gosálvez Prados — última modificación 11/03/2014 11:44

In 2010, the government set out its plans for reforming the NHS in ‘Equity and excellence: Liberating the NHS’. It stated that the primary purpose of the NHS is to improve the outcomes of healthcare for all: to deliver care that is safer, more effective, and that provides a better experience for patients.

In 2012, the mandate to NHS England set out a requirement to provide ‘care which feels more joined-up to the users of services’ and which ‘ensures people experience smooth transitions between care settings and organisations.’

Also in 2012, the care and support white paper set out more detailed proposals for integrating health and care services.

The Health and Social Care Act 2012 sets out specific obligations for the health system and its relationship with care and support services. It gives a duty to NHS England, clinical commissioning groups, Monitor and health and wellbeing boards to make it easier for health and social care services to work together. This will improve the quality of services and people’s experiences of them.

The Act also allows setting the standards needed to create an electronic database of people’s care assessments, and their care and treatment needs.