We respond to Lord Darzi’s review of the NHS

Jim Kane, Chief Executive Officer at Community Integrated Care, has commented on Lord Darzi’s report on the state of the NHS in England:

“Community Integrated Care welcomes Lord Darzi’s comprehensive but alarming report on the current state of the NHS. Lord Darzi highlights serious concerns about the very wide disparities in the life expectancy of people with learning disabilities, the drop in the number of learning disabilities nurses in mental health services, long waiting times to access services becoming normalised, and the multiple barriers that prevent people with learning disabilities from accessing the care that they need.

Although outside the scope of his review, we also support Lord Darzi’s view that ‘it is impossible to understand what has been happening in the NHS without understanding what has happened to social care’ which he rightly describes as not being valued or resourced sufficiently, and which has both a profound human cost and economic consequence.

We look forward to seeing Lord Darzi’s analysis leading to strong action by the Government through the development of a new Ten-Year NHS Plan to improve the health, care and support of people with learning disabilities to enable them to live their best possible heathy, fulfilling and independent lives.

In particular, the NHS and social care systems must provide properly integrated care and support at key points when the two systems are dependent upon each other for ensuring better care of people with learning disabilities. These include better delivery of integrated health and care services in the community, reduced avoidable admissions into hospital and reduced delayed discharges from hospital into community settings.

And beyond that, the Government must address the long overdue reform of social care as a whole. As a champion of improved pay for care workers, Community Integrated Care supports the Government’s commitment to a fair pay agreement for care workers, the development of a National Care Service, and cross party talks on future funding of the care system.

As a first step, the government should take immediate action to increase the pay of frontline care and support workers to improve the quality of life for those receiving and those providing care and support, to improve the productivity of social care and healthcare services, and to contribute to economic growth as called for in our March 2024 ‘Who Cares Wins’ – Unfair To Care 2024 report.”