The pandemic underlined not only the dedication and skill of those working in the health and social care sector, but also the need of a broader, more integrated health and care system to ensure it functions better for the workforce, and better for the users and patients.
I welcome the intention to develop more integrated care between the NHS, Local Government and other partners including the voluntary and community sector, which will be vital in tackling the factors that affect the long-term sustainability of patient services. Service provision by the independent and voluntary sectors has been, and continues to be, an important and valuable feature of our healthcare system, which I fully support. That said, I do appreciate that there are concerns about private sector involvement in Integrated Care Boards (ICB). It is important that people are assured that the work of ICBs will be driven by health outcomes, not by profits.
Lots of organisations including charities and campaigns concerned about health and social care now choose to do their lobbying by identical mass email and the amount of emails of this nature has increased significantly in recent years. I hope you can appreciate that I am not always able to respond to all mass campaign based emails individually.
On these pages you can read my responses to some of the most popular recent email campaigns on the topic of health and social care.
Of course, if you have any personal comments or specific concerns that you would like to raise with me then please do not hesitate to get in touch and I will endeavour to respond to these queries as soon as possible.