Health and Social Care: Fit for the future?
15/07/2025
The Government have now released their ten-year plan for the NHS, after a mammoth consultation period. The report is very in depth, covering the three shifts: hospital to community, analogue to digital and sickness to prevention, and a number of other large-scale changes that will be needed to enable these shifts.
The implications of this plan on social care have been highly anticipated - and largely still remain to be seen. Interestingly, despite the fact that social care will be fundamental to delivering on big thematic shifts that the plan sets out, such as delivering care more locally and focussing on prevention, there are disappointingly few mentions of social care throughout. This is likely due to reliance on the Casey Commission to prescribe the way forward for social care in due course.
There are some significant cultural changes proposed by the 10-year plan that would be interesting thematically if they were carried through to social care, such as use of AI to minimise admin, outcome-based performance monitoring for staff/providers, and putting patient choice in care at the heart of service delivery. We’ll be exploring these implications over the next year in the run up to the Casey Commission’s first reporting in 2026.
Though we will need to see more detail to fully understand the implications of the changes for the people we support, we are pleased to see a number of our key points have been addressed in the plan, as summarised below.
We said:
“A major challenge is the inconsistent involvement of older people and their chosen representatives in care planning. Trusted contacts, such as family carers, play a critical role in spotting early signs of ill health, particularly for individuals with communication or capacity challenges.”
The report says:
“Unpaid carers will also be actively involved in care planning. We will mirror the inclusive practices of family group conferencing, which are meetings where family, friends and carers agree decisions about care together. We will capture information about unpaid carers systematically, to ensure their responsibilities are recognised and supported.”
We said:
“Many older people in care homes face difficulties accessing basic healthcare services like GPs and dentists, allowing preventable health issues to escalate.”
They said:
“People living in care homes or who have frailty are particularly likely to experience poor outcomes when their care is poorly coordinated. They often end up in hospital unnecessarily and can lose their independence while there. Care will come to them, including hospital care - supported by wearables and other monitoring technology.”
We said:
“High staff turnover and inconsistent training prevent the establishment of ongoing relationships that enable early identification of changes in health.”
They said:
“Social care professionals will be part of teams and we will deepen their involvement in rehabilitation, recovery and frailty prevention. We will work with social care organisations to enable care professionals to carry out more healthcare activities, such as blood pressure checks, to help people receive more proactive and timely care.”
We said:
“We propose short-term policy changes, such as implementing a legal right to a Care Supporter and enhancing information-sharing protocols between health and care providers.”
They said:
“In the future, a neighbourhood health plan will be drawn up by local government, the NHS and its partners at single or upper tier authority level under the leadership of the Health and Wellbeing Board, incorporating public health, social care, and the Better Care Fund.”
Read more about our evidence to the consultation here.