NHS and Social Care: Joint Working

Lord Bishop of Sheffield Excerpts

Thursday 26th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I very much welcome that report and am pleased that the Government have been responsive to identifying what we need to do. I never tire of saying that, to support the workforce in the way that my noble friend said, we are introducing a new fair pay agreement for adult social care and implementing the first universal career structure for adult social care. That will—and I know noble Lords are concerned about this—lift the status and attraction of work in social care. I believe that, alongside, for example, the apprenticeships that we are now making available and many other measures, we will get to a place where those in the workforce are doing the job we would like them to do and are being properly recognised on all counts for it.

[The Lord Bishop of Sheffield]

In the light of the 2023 Hewitt review into integrated care systems, how are the Government building greater awareness of adult social care in the NHS workforce in order to enable greater collaboration?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

Well, it is absolutely part of training, and the movement towards that integration of understanding across both sectors has been continuing for some while. The right reverend Prelate gives me the chance to say that we also have a digital platform that allows skills to be recognised across. The more we can do in that way, both technically and with people, the more success we will have in being integrated and building care around the person who requires it.