NHS to consult on social care services

Social care staff have been invited to participate in a national
consultation exercise to look at ways in which the delivery of
health and social care can “offer more choice, become more
responsive to patients and tackle inequalities”.

NHS chief executive Nigel Crisp invited social care
professionals alongside NHS staff, patients and user groups to
become involved in the exercise which has the aim of making sure
that everyone can have good access to high quality health and
social care.

Crisp said: “As we grow, we have the opportunity to offer
people more choice over their care and more involvement in decision
making; we can become more responsive to patients, design services
better, and tackle inequalities.”

 It is vital to involve professional staff, carers and patients
to do this, Crisp added and stressed: “It is also important
to think about social care as well as health, because so many
people use both services.”

Harry Cayton, who is chief executive of the Alzheimer’s Society,
will be joining the department on a full-time basis to lead this
project. He is currently part-time director of ‘Patients and the
Public’.

The consultation will run until November, and will be lead by
strategic health authorities, voluntary organisations and patient
groups.