New proposals aim to bring health and care together and build on pandemic innovations

Liaison Group

The Government has today set out proposals to build on the successful NHS response to the pandemic, in a new whitepaper; Integration and innovation: working together to improve health and social care for all.

The reforms build on the NHS’s Long Term Plan proposals, and bring health and care services closer together to improve care and tackle health inequalities, and will include measures to address obesity, oral health and patient choice.

Using some of the beneficial changes accelerated by Covid-19 as a catalyst, the whitepaper also includes proposals to make integrated care the default, reduce legal bureaucracy, and increase support for social care, public health and the NHS. It also pushes for the health and care sector to increase its use of modern technology, establishing it as a better platform to support staff and patient care. One of the ways it proposes to do this is by improving the quality and availability of data across the health and care sector to enable systems to plan for the future care of their communities.

Health and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock stated: “The NHS and local government have long been calling for better integration and less burdensome bureaucracy, and this virus has made clear the time for change is now.

“These changes will allow us to build back better and bottle the innovation and ingenuity of our brilliant staff during the pandemic, where progress was made despite the legal framework, rather than because of it.”

Liaison Group CEO, Andrew Armitage, responded: “We will continue to support and respond to any changes which help to build a stronger NHS for future generations. Our priority remains that our technology, people and solutions prioritise the growth of the NHS; making valuable savings, increasing staff wellbeing, and improving overall patient experiences.”

A copy of the new whitepaper can be found here.