The Healthcare Commission has joined the Commission for Social Care Inspection in warning against full-scale integration of the regulation of the two sectors (
news, 24 November).
In its response to the government's wider review of health and social care regulation, the commission, like the CSCI, emphasised key differences between the two sectors that would require a continued regulatory separation.
The government has proposed a unified health and social care regulator by 2008, but the commission suggested this should be a "federated" arrangement, with distinct health and social care elements, rather than a full-scale merger.
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Echoing the CSCI, the commission emphasised that social care was means-tested, provided mainly by the independent sector and commissioned by elected councils, while health was free at the point of delivery, delivered mainly by the NHS and commissioned by appointed bodies.
