Adequate resources and a shared long-term commitment by the NHS, ministers and councils will be needed to deliver on government plans for integrating health and care, the LGA has warned.
It said the Government’s recently published health and social care integration white paper puts people and communities at the centre of integration policy to ensure that everyone gets the right care in the right place at the right time to achieve better health and care outcomes.
The LGA also welcomed the white paper’s focus on prevention, but flagged that councils’ public health grant has been cut by 24 per cent on a real-terms per capita basis since 2015/16.
Cllr David Fothergill, Chairman of the LGA’s Community Wellbeing Board, said: “We are pleased to see that the important role councils play in joining up health and care services is recognised in this paper, as well as the focus on prevention and providing care and support to people in community settings.
“The LGA has long argued for a strong role for place-based leadership of care and health. We believe that integrated care systems should develop their place-based arrangements on existing local authority boundaries since many of the components of joined-up working already exist at this level.
“Adult social care is in a fragile position, with councils struggling to balance budgets and services severely impacted by rising costs and recruitment issues.
“A long-term funding solution is urgently needed to ensure a sustainable, high-quality and sufficient care and health workforce to meet needs now and going forward.”