Today, the Health and Social Care Committee held an evidence session as
part of its work on the 10 Year Health Plan,
examining what actions the Government and NHS England need to
take in order to deliver their ambition of shifting more care
from hospitals into community settings.
The Committee heard evidence from senior representatives from the
NHS, Social Care, Nursing and General Practice.
Responding to the evidence the Committee heard today, the
Committee Chair MP, said:
“It has been an ambition of successive governments to shift
healthcare from hospitals to community settings and we all agree
that this shift needs to take place, but as we have heard from
our witnesses today, there need to be clear actions and
incentives to back up the Government's ambition.
“While most of the incentives and targets announced so far seem
to be on acute care, we worry that when competing priorities
collide, the politically less urgent community care will not get
the prioritisation it needs. We will be questioning the Secretary
of State on how the Government intends to achieve this shift, in
our hearing with him next week.”
Following the comments in the evidence session of the
General Secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, Nicola Ranger,
on the proposed public sector pay rise, Committee Chair MP, said:
“As we heard from the General Secretary of the RCN today, nurses'
concerns are not only on this year's proposed public sector
pay rise, but fundamentally on the need for structural reform for
nursing, to address the issues of workforce shortages and staff
retention, and in order to enable the shift from hospital to
community, and we encourage the Government to engage in this
issue in its discussions with them.”
