Party Speeches on the Future of Health and Care Services – Response from Independent Age

In response to the two Labour Party speeches on the future of health and care services by Ed Miliband and Andy Burnham, Janet Morrison, Chief Executive of Independent Age, said:

“Many of the individual measures outlined in the Labour Party’s speeches on the future of health and care services could, if implemented, make a great difference to older people. 15 minute care visits have become a symbol of all that is wrong in today’s chronically underfunded system of adult care. However the statement is largely silent on the two huge practical challenges – funding and integration of health and social care.

“On integration, the statement promises integrated health and social care ‘year of care’ budgets, the expected savings from which would be used to fund other reforms, such as an end to 15 minute home care visits. Yet without further reorganisation of two fundamentally different systems – the NHS, which is free at the point of use and paid for through national taxation, and social care, which is means tested and provided by councils – it is hard to see how any government could introduce such budgets.”