Health and Care Reform Timeline

The Health and Care Act 2022 (HCA) gives two new duties to the Care Quality Commission (CQC):
• Review and assess local authority performance in delivering adult social care duties under part 1 of the Care Act 2014.
• Review healthcare and adult social care in each integrated care board (ICB) with reviews covering how partners work together in the integrated care system (ICS).

The CQC will assess local authorities, ICSs and providers, using a new single assessment framework.

As set out in Data saves lives, the Government aims to ensure that organisations have high quality, timely data to better inform planning, commissioning and assessment in health and social care. In the Plan for Digital Health and Social Care, the Government sets out their delivery plans, at a high level, to March 2025 for the above commitments and a vision for digitally transformed health and social care services beyond 2025. In the Adult Social Care White Paper, the Government committed at least £150m to deliver a programme of digital transformation that will drive improvements to the quality, safety and personalisation of care. An overall intention, described in the Integration White Paper, is for all health and care organisations within an ICS to reach a level of ‘digital maturity’ and connection to a shared health and social care record over the next three years.

The ASC white paper sets out government plans to invest at least £500m over 3 years to transform the adult social care workforce so it is well-trained, supported, recognised and sustainable. The Integration white paper includes measures to address barriers between the health and care workforce. TBCs include:

• Develop care certificates as a portable record of learning across care settings.
• Develop a new digital workforce hub for people to access support and information including a skills passport providing a permanent record of skills and achievements: voluntary in the first instance.
• Roll-out digital skills training for the social care workforce to support the development of technology in provider settings.
• A new health and wellbeing offer with measures such as peer support, mental health training, and piloting an occupational health portal for social care providers.
• Exploring an integrated skills passport to support transfer between health and care settings.

The government’s food strategy sets out an intention to halve the childhood obesity gap between local authorities where it is highest and lowest by 2030. TBCs include:

• A pilot programme in primary care through the Community Eatwell programme building on the work of social prescribing.
• Measures to improve school food and food curriculum.
• Consultation on mandatory public health reporting against a set of food/drink health metrics.
• The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities to manage a deconditioning innovation fund of £3m investment over three years to enable local authorities to support people at high risk of deconditioning (ASC white paper).

Further information will be added to the timeline from forthcoming documents: the Health Disparities White Paper which is intended to provide more detail on health inequalities elements of levelling up, the government response to Making smoking obsolete, and the updated NHS Long term plan.

Reforms to improve the range and quality of person-centred social care services by creating the ‘right care in the right place at the right time’ are one of the central themes in the ASC White Paper TBCs include:
• Consultation on aspects of the DFG.
• Fund a new service to make minor repairs and changes in people’s homes.
• Local areas to agree a plan embedding housing in in health and care strategies.
• Housing transformation fund to support integration of housing, health and care in local places and grow the availability of supported housing.
• Local authorities to increase expenditure on services for those in supported housing.
• Join up innovative models of care/unpaid carers/ information and advice into a single programme of funding and support to local authorities and partners to pilot initiatives and share learning.
DWP pilots on supported employment scheme for people with autism learning disabilities in 20 local authorities and access to work plus scheme.