'Shaping the Future of Care Together'

Government report on reforming care and support system

A green paper report called ‘Shaping the Future of Care Together’ has been published by the Secretary of State for Health and was presented to Parliament on 14th July 2009. The report looks at ways to reform the current care and support system. One of the items reviewed in the report is the possibility of integrating some benefits, in particular Attendance Allowance (AA).

The report assures that:

“Whatever the outcome of the consultation, we want to ensure that people receiving any of the relevant benefits at the time of reform would continue to receive an equivalent level of support and protection under a new and better care and support system.”

To read a summary of this report, which has been put together by 'National Voices', please click here.

How NRAS is responding to the Green Paper:

‘National Voices’ (NV) is an organisation which brings together national voluntary organisations representing service users of health and social care to give them a stronger voice in policy making. NRAS is a member of National Voices and is working with them to review the green paper report.

At a meeting on 7th August attended by our Government Affairs Manager, Jenny Snell, it was recognised that there are a number of issues to consider:

How does this piece of legislation fit in with other policies? ie Personal Health Care Plans and Personal Budgets that are already being piloted
The Green Paper talks about bringing together health, social care and housing, it does not talk about Work & Pensions.
However, because there is so much that we don’t know and so little detail in the Green Paper, we think that National Voices should take action.

At the above meeting, the following was agreed that:

NV would form a working group to take forward a campaign.
The Consultation questions were the wrong questions and that the National Voices patient groups should determine the right questions, and then survey their memberships.
To achieve this, we are now waiting for National Voices to send round a set of questions for us to review and agree. Once this has been achieved, we will all send these questions out electronically to our members in the form of a survey.

This survey will then inform the Department and Ministers what the ‘real issues and solutions’ are. Currently the Green Paper talks of an economic model that shows a better way, but there is no detail as to what this looks like!

We will update this page as the campaign develops. It is also worth noting that there is likely to be a general election before we get to the White Paper and legislation stage!

For more details please follow the link above.