• The National Audit Office (NAO) have published a report on The Health and Social Care Interface which assesses the challenges preventing health and social care from working together effectively.
• The report argues that the financial pressure that the NHS and local government are under makes closer working between them difficult and can divert them from focusing on efforts to transform services.
• Sir Amyas Morse, the head of the NAO, urges faster progress towards a service that centres on the needs of individuals and meets growing demands for care.

In response, the head of strategy at NHS Providers, Miriam Deakin, said:

“The National Audit Office report recognises that social care and the NHS are two sides of the same coin.

“Years of cuts to local authority budgets have led to a significant squeeze on adult social care. The knock-on effect has been felt right across the NHS, including hospital, community, mental health and ambulance services.

Years of cuts to local authority budgets have led to a significant squeeze on adult social care.

Miriam Deakin    

“We need a clearer national strategy for joined up health and social care services which supports people to stay well for longer and brings care closer to home.

“The government has committed to addressing the social care question and we await the green paper now due in the Autumn. We are clear that fixing NHS funding without doing the same for social care will simply store up problems for front-line health services, as well as falling short of the care and support the public needs.”