Better care fund gives integration a 'bad name', says Burnham

Andy Burnham also told the NHS Confederation annual conference in Liverpool today that allocating the NHS more funding would also not be the “first response” of a Labour government to addressing its difficulties.

On the subject of the government’s flagship integration policy, he said: “I am really worried that the better care fund might get integration a bad name.

“It’s not just the timetable that is the problem, it is also the fact that it is based on the old notion of shunting funds from… the NHS to local government, rather than embracing the notion of a truly single service.

“Money will be passed from the NHS to local government not to create additional services to keep people out of hospital but probably to backfill cuts to social care which are being made right now in this financial year.

“That in turn creates a big risk that the promised reduction in emergency admissions will never materialise leaving the NHS in a much weakened position in 2015 than it might overwise have been.”

He added that 2015-16 “was always going to be a dangerous year” for the NHS and “if [the better care fund] proceeds without the necessary checks, the better care fund could tip it over the edge”.

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Mr Burnham he wanted to see the “full integration” of the health and social care services, which meant the creation of “a single service and single budget”.

Moving the NHS from a service designed for the 20th century to one fit for the 21st century would be a “10-year journey” in which the notion of “full person care” would be developed, the shadow health secretary added.

Speaking to HSJ following his speech, he stopped short of saying that he wanted the policy to be ditched but stressed that there “needs to be real clarity over whether it’s safe to proceed or not”.

“The Cabinet Office, we are told, has raised objections to it and have put the brakes on. That [debate] can’t go on behind closed doors.”

The former health secretary also used his speech to outline what a Labour government would do should it win the general election next May.

On the issue of funding, he said: “I can understand why a growing number of people are calling for [more money for the NHS] but I don’t see that can be the first response that we make in the public arena.

He said that before more money could be put into the NHS, a Labour government would have to be able to assure patients that the health service was making the best use of its existing allocation – something he said the NHS was not doing.

A Labour government, he said, would send a leaflet to every home in the country, similar to an exercise carried out by Nye Bevan when he set up the NHS in 1948.    

Bevan had set expectations for the then new health service and Mr Burnham said it was time for a similar exercise to set out what the public could expect from the NHS in the 21st century.