People with long-term conditions need more co-ordinated health and social care to stop them falling between services and to reduce unnecessary hospital admissions.
That was the message from health secretary John Reid last week, as he unveiled the government's blueprint for supporting the estimated 17.5 million people across the UK with chronic conditions.
Primary care trusts will take the lead in drawing up local plans to provide co-ordinated community health and social care for people with conditions including arthritis, diabetes and multiple sclerosis.
The centrepiece of the system will be 3,000 community matrons - senior district nurses who will co-ordinate the social care and health needs of the 250,000 people with the most serious long-term conditions. People with less serious conditions will be helped to support themselves.
The policy is driven by the government's target of reducing emergency bed use in hospitals by 5 per cent by 2008, and reflects ministers' beliefs that community services for people with long-term conditions are often unplanned and reactive.
Currently, 10 per cent of patients, many of whom have long-term conditions, account for more than half of hospital stays.
Association of Directors of Social Services president Tony Hunter backed the policy, saying: "Anything that shores up joint working [between health and social services] on the ground is to be welcomed.
"More generally, anything that supports work in the community to reduce pressures on hospitals has got to be a good thing."
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