Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Thirty-Fifth Report - Introducing Integrated Care Systems
Public Accounts Committee
HC 47
Published 8 February 2023
Recommendations
18
Deferred
The social care workforce is in a similarly precarious position, against a wider backdrop of...
Recommendation
The social care workforce is in a similarly precarious position, against a wider backdrop of declining local authority resources.64 Despite the Department’s assurances that “the numbers are moving in the right direction”, vacancies in social care have been on an …
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Government Response Summary
The government agrees with the recommendation but defers implementation until April 2025, when interim findings of its formal evaluation of workforce reform initiatives will be available; an update on the breakdown of spend will be available in April 2024 and a plan for adult social care system reform will be published in Spring 2023.
HM Treasury
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20
Deferred
We asked the Department what the £500 million Adult Social Care Discharge Fund would achieve.
Recommendation
We asked the Department what the £500 million Adult Social Care Discharge Fund would achieve. It informed us this funding would be used primarily for measures to support discharge from hospitals into social care, with an expectation that much would …
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Government Response Summary
The government provided £500 million to support safe discharge from hospital into social care and will publish joint plans from local authorities and NHS integrated care boards shortly; it will provide more detailed analysis and findings of the fund's evaluation in summer 2023.
HM Treasury
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Conclusions (3)
14
Conclusion
Deferred
ICSs must contend with the legacy of an increasingly decrepit NHS estate and infrastructure. The NAO’s report highlights that the cost of the work needed to bring the NHS estate back up to scratch has increased from just under £5 billion in 2015–16 to an eye-watering £9 billion by 2020–21, …
Government Response Summary
The government agrees and states that plans for a capital strategy remain under consideration, and the strategy is intended to be published within 2023.
15
Conclusion
Deferred
We asked the Department about the limited extent of capital investment in the NHS. It told us that it had taken an explicit decision to reduce capital investment prior to the COVID-19 pandemic in the interests of managing budgets but accepted this has now put pressure onto capital programmes.48 The …
Government Response Summary
The government agrees and states that plans for a capital strategy remain under consideration, and the strategy is intended to be published within 2023.
17
Conclusion
Deferred
The January 2019 NHS Long Term Plan originally committed to producing a workforce implementation plan by late 2019. In September 2020, the Department told us that it expected to publish the workforce plan following the December 2020 Spending Review.59 In July 2021, it finally commissioned the work from NHS England …
Government Response Summary
The government agrees and committed to publishing a long-term workforce plan for the NHS in 2023.