Future of Social Care Institute for Excellence in doubt

The future of the Social Care Institute for Excellence has been called into question after the government announced the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence was to be given powers to drive improvement in social care.

The White Paper said: “The Health Bill will put NICE on a firmer statutory footing, securing its independence and core functions and extending its remit to social care.”

Care services minister Paul Burstow said: “Scie is a charity so they continue to have a role but it won’t be the same role they played directly alongside Nice in the past.

“Some aspects of that role will transfer over [to Nice] and we are in discussions with Scie about how that will be done.”

Allan Bowman, SCIE chair, said: “SCIE has an established track record helping people to understand what works and what’s new and developing. It’s important that quality standards are developed where clinical health services are closely linked with social care provision; SCIE already works with NICE on this task.”