“It is essential for patient outcomes that health and social care services are better integrated at all levels of the system.”
Equity and excellence: Liberating the NHS White Paper, Department of Health, July 2010
Population growth and change place demands on social care as well as health infrastructure. Integrating health and social care has many benefits and proposals to modernise adult care and support form an integral part of the Government social care reform.
Joint commissioning strategies and plans are the starting point for further integration, but social or community infrastructure planning exercises – usually done as part of the evidence base for, and development of Local Plans, and for the introduction of Community Infrastructure Levy – are another opportunity to consider the benefits of integration.