How can the healthcare shift from hospital to community be achieved? MPs to explore

• Inquiry: The 10 Year Health Plan
• Watch live on parliamentlive.tv
• Health and Social Care Committee

The Committee will investigate what actions the Government and NHS England need to take in order to deliver their ambition of shifting more care from hospitals into community settings, with MPs questioning senior representatives from the NHS, Social Care, Nursing and General Practice. 

Following the publication of Lord Darzi’s report into the state of the NHS in England, in September, the Government announced that it would develop a 10 Year Health Plan, underlined by “three big shifts” in healthcare, including an ambition to shift more care from hospitals to community settings. 

With this shift having been a long-standing standing ambition for successive Governments, MPs will probe why the shift from hospital to community has not yet been achieved and what different action needs to be taken this time.  

The Committee will also ask how challenges which exist within community care settings could be addressed and ask what local authorities need from the Government to support adult social care services. 

Given the announcement in the Budget of an increase in funding of £22.6 billion over a two-year period for the Department of Health and Social Care, the Committee may ask how NHS funding could best be reprioritised towards community services and will explore proposed financial planning and funding allocations. MPs may also ask how the GP contract could be changed to better support a shift from hospitals to the community. 

With a recent survey by the Royal College of GPs finding that 42% of GPs are unlikely to be working in general practice in 5 years’ time, the Committee will ask if the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan is adequate to address wider recruitment and retention issues faced by the sector, and how viable long-term change is in the face of acute short-term pressures. 

Witnesses on 11 December

From 9.30am 

• Stephanie Elsy, Chair, Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire Integrated Care Board 
• Saffron Cordery, Interim Chief Executive, NHS Providers  
• Melanie Williams, President, Association of Directors of Adult Social Services  

From 10.30am 

• Beccy Baird, Senior Fellow and author of 'Making care closer to home a reality', The King's Fund 
• Professor Kamila Hawthorne MBE, Chair, Royal College of General Practitioners 
• Professor Nicola Ranger, General Secretary and Chief Executive, Royal College of Nursing 

Further information

• About Parliament: Select committees
• Visiting Parliament: Watch committees

Image: House of Commons