Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 24
24
Accepted
Social care delivery for users inadequately reflected in Department's Annual Reports and Accounts.
Recommendation
The Department was renamed the Department of Health and Social Care (from the Department of Health) in January 2018, with the intention of delivering a greater focus on adult social care.We observed that social care is only reflected in “a lot of little bits” in the Department’s Annual Reports and Accounts. We therefore asked how social care delivery for users was being improved. NHS England told us that “a lot of work is already going on” including moving towards having joint social care and NHS assessment teams. It explained that this created a single process for assessing the care package needed for each patient and how it should be delivered, which should also result in earlier discharge from hospital. It also told us that it had undertaken work over the last 18 months to consider how it could improve intermediate care, focusing on physical rehabilitation when patients were leaving hospital, which it planned to roll out in 2026.40
Government Response Summary
The government commits to improving the transparency and informativeness of its 2024-25 Annual Report and Accounts to include coverage of social care delivery, with an update to the Committee by September 2025.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
2.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendations. Target implementation date: September 2025 2.2 The department is committed to the continuous improvement of its Annual Report and Accounts (ARA) to ensure the content is as transparent and informative as possible, both in the specific areas to which the Committee refers and in other emerging areas of public and parliamentary interest. 2.3 The department plans to cover the areas listed in recommendations 2a and 2b in its 2024-25 ARA. The department will update the Committee on progress alongside its update to the Committee on recommendation 5 in September.