The Impact Of The Spending Review On Health And Care

Funding gaps in both public health and social care will hamper the NHS’s ability to deliver improvements to patient care.

So states our submission to the Health Select Committee (HSC) on the impact of the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR).

The HSC invited written submissions in December 2015, after the detail of the spending review was laid out in November.

The submission, which will be published by the HSC later in the year, is based on our members’ views and reflects our assessment of how the CSR will affect the health and care system.

Key points from the submission

• Health and care is not only a public good, it is a public priority. There is a strong moral case for transforming how care is delivered to better suit the needs of people today. There is an equally compelling economic case for investing in the NHS and social care services, so they can better support our society to live healthier lives with less need for medical care.
• Public spending on health and care in England will diminish in this Parliament from 6.6 to 6.3 per cent of national income. This will impact on the sector’s ability to deliver high quality care in the future.
• The success of the Five Year Forward View depends on having the right conditions in place to support new models of care. Funding for social care and public health are two conditions we believe have not been met in full, but we also need to ensure the additional resources delivered in the spending review are used to drive transformation.
• A renewed agreement between the health and care system and society would underline the importance of the NHS remaining free at the point of use and help to consider how resources match the expectation of what is delivered. This should start by encouraging cross-party agreement on the challenges facing health and care, while exploring the options for how to meet them.
• Among local leaders and national bodies there is unprecedented recognition and determination that services need to change – national bodies and politicians must support local leaders to make this determination a reality.

Drawing on the evidence within the submission, we have outlined three main suggestions for the Health Select Committee.

• We need to develop shared plans for how the NHS will deliver savings and transform care in the next four years.
• We must address the concerns on cuts to public health and underfunded social care services, by working with the government to explore how funding for social care can be brought forward.
• We should bring political parties together to review funding and delivery of health and care and how politicians can support a more sustainable social contract for the future.