NHS England Response to Spending Review 2015/16
Sir David Nicholson, Chief Executive of NHS England, comments on the establishment of the new Health and Social Care Integration fund and overall settlement for the NHS announced in today’s Spending Review 2015/16.
Sir David Nicholson, the Chief Executive of NHS England said:
“This is a very significant settlement for the NHS. It presents both opportunities and challenges. It is a potential ‘game changer’ as it gives us the opportunity to accelerate the development of integrated services. It means we can provide more joined-up care for care for patients with complex needs, enabling them to be supported at home.”
“Merging health and social care budgets to support integrated care at a time when resources are constrained will require us to rethink how we organise services around patients. We need to begin formulating plans as soon as possible so that we are ready to take full advantage of the opportunities offered by the 2015/16 settlement.”
2 comments
Basically, the Health Budget is being asked to absorb the Local Authority welfare cuts without comparable additional funds to make up for that loss, setting up patients against benefit receivers. Meanwhile patients and professional staff are being asked to see these cuts as an opportunity rather than simple cuts, now known by the euphemism ‘challenges’: that is the professionals are being asked to do more work for capped rewards; whilst people receiving benefits are called scroungers by the government writing this policy.
Its easy to write policy, especially if the policy never has to touch you personally.
I totally agree with the principle of this however, local delivery will be challenging given Councils have effectively been told that their budget is cut but they will get the money back from health. Unfortunately whilst we have very good working relations with our local partners, Health and Wellbeing Boards are still immature and we are locally experiencing some resistance to influencing the agenda. They are unhappy about what is perceived as top down ‘requirements’ via DH or NHS England.