Hft CEO Steve Veevers responds to the Lord Darzi report
We welcome Lord Darzis report into the NHS and are glad that the new government is serious about sorting out our beloved institutions that are creaking at the seams.
We share Lord Darzi’s view that “social care has not been valued or resourced sufficiently” and agree that this has had both a profound human cost and economic consequences. He rightly recognises that care outside of a hospital setting should be the priority.
We know that without sustainable investment into the social care sector, we cannot turn the NHS around. Sadly this is not a new story. For many years Hft has been calling for wholesale reform of the social care sector.
We have urged the Government to tackle health and social care together recognising the interdependence of one on the other. Not only can social care take pressure off the NHS, it can help people to continue living as part of their community and making valuable contributions.
The social care workforce is larger than that of the entire NHS and accounts for 5.3% of the nation’s economically active population*. Yet it is still treated as the ‘Cinderella sister’ to the NHS. Our 2023 Sector Pulse Check Report, produced in partnership with Care England, clearly set out the harmful financial and human impact of social care being consistently undervalued by Governments.
Lord Darzi states, “Rising demand from a society where people have become older and sicker alongside a social care system that is far from supporting the scale of needs of the population, are the crucial context in which NHS performance must be understood.” It is time to act before we run out of time.
We are ready to work with the Government and the NHS to get our country’s health and social care provision right and stop failing those who rely on it and who deserve to live full and independent lives.
You can read the full Lord Darzi report here – Independent investigation of the NHS in England – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
*Every year Hft surveys social care providers to understand the state of the sector and what it needs. Our report– Sector Pulse Check – will be published in early 2025. You can read our 2023 report here. Hft-Sector-Pulse-Check-2023-Digital-Singles_.pdf
