Recommendation 12

The Chief Nursing Officer of NHSE&I emphasised how the COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated the importance of social care and the value of better integration between health and social care. She commented that “if anything good can come out of it [the pandemic], that will be the focus on social care” and “if there is anything to learn from the pandemic, it is about how we have closer integration between health and social care … which therefore includes the workforce.”22 However, the Department told us that social care will not be included in the NHS People Plan as the focus of the plan is on developing the workforce to deliver the Long Term Plan for the NHS.23 Social care nurses are also not included in the NHSE&I and HEE model of the supply and demand of nurses to the NHS, which supports the People Plan .24 The Department argued that it would be too challenging to develop an integrated workforce plan for health and social care as the sectors have different statutory bases and its powers and influences over them are not the same.25