Last Updated on May 22, 2017

The Health Foundation has published three new briefings focusing on the current state of social care. The briefing papers focus on NHS and social care funding, quality of care in the English NHS and a sustainable workforce. 

The paper on NHS and social care funding aims to clarify the debate on three main challenges:

• Funding and social care: how big a problem is it?
• Funding and the NHS: are two years of famine ahead?
• Funding for social care and the NHS: how much might be needed beyond 2020?

It summarises the evidence and offers commentary on the options that need to be considered if both of these essential services are to meet the public’s needs in the future. Key points include:

• Social care needs immediate attention from an incoming government. Despite the extra money allocated to social care in the Spring Budget, the current system is severely under-funded and unaffordable for people on low incomes who are ineligible for free care.
• Funding for the NHS in England needs to increase in the next two years to protect access to care and the quality of services for patients.
• Beyond 2020, the pace of funding growth for the NHS and social care system will need to accelerate, taking a greater share of GDP.
• The briefing also calls for an independent financial body for the NHS to be established, similar to the OBR, to lay out the long-term financial outlook for health and social care, as recommended by the House of Lords’ committee on sustainability.

The second paper, on the quality of care in the English NHS, finds that waiting times for many NHS urgent and emergency services in England were at their worst in 2016/17 for the last five years, but there is so far little evidence that the quality of care for some of the big killers – like heart attack, stroke and cancer – is deteriorating.

The final briefing on a sustainable workforce focuses on the fundamental challenges facing the NHS and social care workforce in England, pointing to a combination of issues around recruitment, retention and morale.

It highlights that the future workforce for the NHS and social care sector is at risk without urgent action from the incoming government to establish a sustainable and joined-up workforce strategy. It considers what steps might be needed to make sure the NHS and social care in England have enough of the right people to deliver high-quality care in the future.