Osborne hails £6 billion social care plan for Manchester councils

By The Press Association26th February 2015News EnglandBusiness / Funding / Finance, Finance, Local Authorities, Manchester, News England

Plans to devolve £6 billion a year of health spending to Greater Manchester will lead to closer integration between the NHS and social care and improve results for patients, George Osborne has claimed.

The Chancellor insisted the massive expansion of devolution would not weaken the NHS nationally but would give Manchester greater control of its own affairs.

The announcement was given a cautious welcome by organisations representing doctors and nurses, who support better integration between health and social care but are anxious about another extensive reorganisation of the way the NHS is run.

Under the plans, responsibility for the money will be given to 10 local councils from April next year.

The Chancellor has championed devolution to Manchester as part of his vision to create a “northern powerhouse” to rival London and he said the plans were a part of the aim.

He said: “We’re discussing a plan for bringing together the NHS and social care in Manchester so we provide better care for patients.

“This is exactly what we want to see more of in our health care. It’s also about giving Greater Manchester more control over things run in Greater Manchester – which is what our vision of a northern powerhouse is all about.

“It’s early days, but I think it’s a really exciting development. We’ll be working hard now with Greater Manchester and NHS England on getting the details right so the arrangements work best for patients.”

He denied that the proposals could undermine the national nature of the NHS across England, telling the BBC: “We have a National Health Service, with a national mandate, national targets, free at the point of use but we also want to have people in Manchester having greater control over their own affairs and we want to bring social care and the NHS closer together.”

NHS England’s chief executive Simon Stevens said: “NHS England is working on this ground-breaking offer to the local NHS in Greater Manchester, working in partnership with elected local authorities.

“The NHS five-year forward view says we want to back local leaders and communities who come together to improve health care of their residents and patients. While this new model won’t necessarily be right for many other parts of England, for Greater Manchester the time is right and conditions are right for shared success.”

The 10 local authorities in Greater Manchester, along with 12 clinical commissioning groups, 14 NHS providers, NHS England and the Government are in discussions on the deal to devolve control of the £6 billion a year of health spending from April next year.

British Medical Association chairman Dr Mark Porter said: “There is no doubt that patients would benefit from more joined-up health and social care. However, any plans to do so would have to be underpinned by clear funding to ensure that an already dangerously over-stretched NHS budget isn’t used to prop up a woefully underfunded social care budget.”

He called for assurances on who would be responsible if the changes went wrong and added: “The NHS has just undergone unprecedented upheaval, there must be no more games with our health service and we need to avoid a situation where the NHS moves from being a national to a local political football.”

Dr Peter Carter, chief executive and general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), said: “If done properly, there are clear advantages of health and social care services working more closely together. So many aspects of health are linked to social care issues, such as housing and education, and a smooth transition between health and social care services is better for patients.

“However, nursing staff regularly work at the boundary between health and social care, and know there are challenges when providing free health care and means-tested social care, which particularly affect vulnerable and older patients. There is also a danger of a merger leading to health budgets being spent on council services which do not improve public health. This must not be allowed to happen.”

He warned that “without thorough planning by the Government and regional council it runs the risk of being simply another failed reorganisation”.

A Labour spokeswoman said: “After the failure of their top-down reorganisation of the NHS nobody will trust the Tories on the NHS.

“The Tories have taken the NHS backwards with waiting lists going up, more people waiting longer to see their GP and A&Es in crisis. This announcement will do nothing to address those failures.

Ukip health spokeswoman Louise Bours said: “What the Tories are proposing for Manchester is a recipe for yet another disastrous postcode lottery in the health system.

“This is a clear example of politicians making health policy not on health grounds, but because they believe it will win them votes.”

Shadow chancellor Ed Balls said he would roll out the policy across the country if it was successful.

He told LBC Radio: “We have been saying for the last three years that you need to get social care and the NHS working more closely together in order that you can get people to be able to be in their homes rather than blocking hospital beds.

“The Tories have now cottoned on to this, they were the ones who did a big top-down reorganisation and they are now coming on to this policy which we proposed.

“But the difference is we are also saying we are going to have a time to care fund with £2.5 billion more a year, which will mean 20,000 more nurses, 8,000 more GPs and 5,000 more people working in the community helping people stay in their homes.

“Unless the Tories are going to come along and start investing in the NHS in the way that we will, what I know will be said in Manchester and across the country is ‘these structural reforms without the resources won’t work”.

“Our devolution will work and the Tories’, in my view, will fail.”