I joined Sir John Oldham OBE in launching his report on plans to bring together NHS and care services. It proposes a single care team – doctors, nurses, therapists – working together to meet a personalised plan, with a greater emphasis placed on prevention and keeping people away from unnecessary hospital stays. Older people and their families would benefit from a single point of contact to coordinate all their care needs.
"This report is about re-founding the NHS for the 21st century and building it out for the whole person.
Whole person care starts in the home. We have to make the home the default setting for care - fundamentally rethinking how you care for older people. A person to coordinate your care so families are no longer passed from pillar to post.
But we don’t need new organisations to provide a higher standard of care - just give existing organisations a new job to do.
The Commission agrees that David Cameron’s NHS competition rules are fragmenting care, not integrating it. That’s why it repeats Labour’s call for them to be abolished.
Burnham For Mayor
