Social Care

Baroness Pitkeathley Excerpts

Tuesday 24th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

The noble Lord raises such an important point. I am sure he will also be thinking about the vexed issue of hospital discharge and all the issues that are creating such difficulties in the system. I emphasise that adult social care is part of our vision for a neighbourhood health service, shifting care from hospitals to communities, with the NHS working alongside local authorities, social care providers and the voluntary sector. I am sure we are all looking forward to the announcement of the 10-year health plan, looking at how we can move healthcare from hospitals to the community but recognising that all agencies out in the community have a vital part to play to make this story successful.

[Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government have rightly adopted a preventive approach as far as the NHS is concerned. Does my noble friend agree that it would be a good idea to apply this to social care as well? To take, for example, unpaid carers—I can never resist the temptation to remind your Lordships that they save the nation £192 billion a year—if you put in a small amount of support for those unpaid carers at an early point in their caring journey, you can often prevent a crisis arising. It surely makes very sound economic sense to adopt this preventive approach to social care.

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

The noble Baroness has made the case for us all. As we know, one of the main pillars of changing the health system we have is to move from sickness to prevention. I believe you can transfer that logic and thinking to this area. We have fantastic examples of different neighbourhoods having stepped up to the plate, working to bridge the gap between the health service and local social care providers and working with carers as well. It is critical that we look at the examples of good practice and work out how we can roll them out so that we can make the shift that needs to be made.