What does the 10-year health plan mean for social care?

Though Baroness Casey’s commission is just beginning its work, this 10-year health plan offers the clearest indications yet of the government’s vision for social care.   

The vision is one of person-centred support, which maximises autonomy and independence through a combination of prediction, prevention and technology. 

Where people access services, this will be digital-first (though the NHS App) and, where necessary in their homes and neighbourhoods, where co-located and collaborative teams of health, care and allied professionals will adopt a whole-person approach to support. 

Health inequality will be tackled head-on with areas in which people experience the worst outcomes being prioritised for intervention. Strategic authorities and their mayors will become the focus of political accountability for health and care strategy, while providers will be rewarded according to the outcomes delivered. 

Approach to implementation

The plan includes ambitious, national, delivery dates, and a “test and learn” approach to achieving delivery. This is not the kind of plan limited to a series of pilots, for review at a later date. There is a notable intensity of deadlines up to 2028. 

While this may reflect a plan to develop the detail beyond a three-year horizon later, these may also be the elements considered essential groundwork for rapid implementation of recommendations following the Casey Commission. 

Role of local government

The plan often blurs distinctions between health care, social care and public health, which makes sense in the context of a vision of prevention and care, where needed, in community. 

However, the plan goes on to talk of delivering this through partnership between NHS and local government, with neighbourhood health plans aggregating to population-level plans across an integrated care board (ICB) footprint. 

Those footprints will, “wherever feasibly possible”, align with strategic authorities. Mayors from those authorities will replace local authorities on ICBs and integrated care partnerships will be abolished.  

Analogue to digital

In healthcare, this shift will see an emphasis on the NHS app as a key access point to health and care. 

An integrated patient record will be available to patients on there, with the ability for them to add to it, including choosing to allow approved wearables to deliver data to the app in real time. 

Care plans for long-term conditions will be developed and shared using the app, with patients able to input through the My Care function, and carers through My Carer. 

There will be early opportunities for social care to benefit from this shift. Any tool which can help service users manage their health well can support both efficiency and outcomes in social work, and with appropriate data sharing arrangements there are likely to be opportunities.