Meeting of the Parliament 15 December 2015
That is kind of you—thank you very much.
Such practice or locality groups are variously referred to in different documents as clusters, networks, federations and family care partnerships. They are showing themselves to be crucial to delivery. The work in Tower Hamlets over seven or eight years has been extraordinary in making changes to one of the most deprived communities in the United Kingdom.
We need support for specialist nurses, advanced practitioners, physician assistants, allied health professionals and pharmacists in dealing with issues such as diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, heart failure, end-of-life care and polypharmacy. I ask the Government to publish the details of what it is doing in relation to the clusters so that we can fully discuss that and see how it is going.
The objective is a fully resourced shift in the balance of care from acute hospitals to a modernised and integrated community health and social care service that is fit for the 21st century and is designed to reduce admissions and prevent a return to growth in the number of acute beds. Clearly, there are funding restraints. In the next session, Parliament will need to consider how we address the reduction in the primary care share of the budget and the effect on the infrastructure in the community of the capital cuts that we have had to sustain. Shifting the balance of care cannot be achieved without a significant shift in the balance of resource.
I have one suggestion that does not involve money and therefore does not need approval from the finance secretary. The efficiency savings are still running at 3 per cent, which is difficult. Part of the non-recurring aspect of those savings should be designated for and applied to primary care. That would achieve a shift, because the majority of the savings will come from the major part of the budget, which is still in the acute sector.