Gordon Brown outlines vision for more health and social care at home

In a speech to the King’s Fund in London this morning Mr Brown said the government would introduce a guarantee that all cancer tests were completed and the results given in “just one week”.

Mr Brown said despite the financial squeeze on the public sector it was “fiscally irresponsible” not to reform social care

Mr Brown also announced that the government’s planned reforms to community and primary care health services also included a commitment to provide dedicated “one-to-one” nursing for all cancer patients in their own homes, over the next five years.

He said such reforms to the NHS would be paid for by the NHS achieving savings of £20bn “over the next few years” which would be reinvested in health services, alongside continuing “real term spending” on “frontline” NHS services.

But he also repeated his government’s commitment to establish a national care service that would offer similar “universal guarantees” for a given standard of social care at home, ending “the current postcode lottery”.

Social care is means tested, but the government has already pledged to provide free home care for the 280,000 with the highest needs from October onwards.

Mr Brown followed that today by announcing that the government’s plans for a national care service included universal access to re-ablement and rehabilitation services for people who have been ill or had an accident.

He said that would involve “intensive support services, for between four and six weeks” after a hospital stay, residential care stay, or fall or accident.

He described such a service that is run by Newham council in London – one of a small minority of councils that does not charge for any of its social care services.

But Mr Brown did not explain how extended social care services would be funded, saying that would be set out in a forthcoming white paper which is due before the election.

A Number 10 source said the government was adamant it would not allow “leakage” from the NHS into social care, so new resources would need to be found to extend and reform social care.

Mr Brown said despite the financial squeeze on the public sector it was “fiscally irresponsible” not to reform social care as the evidence suggested preventative services would save on hospital admissions as well as benefit payments to those unable to work due to caring commitments or illness.