Community Health Services
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 6 May 2025 to Question 47908 on Community Health Services: Finance, what options to improve homecare services are under consideration; and what his planned timetable is for the implementation of changes.
Answered by Karin Smyth
The Department remains committed to moving more healthcare out of hospitals and into the community, to ensure patients and families receive the care they need when and where they need it.
The 10-Year Health Plan will see more tests and scans and services delivered in the community, better joint working between services, and greater use of apps and wearable technology. All will support people to manage their conditions closer to home.
Homecare medicines services will play a key role in this and have already grown considerably in the past five years, now supporting approximately 600,000 patients in England to receive specialist, hospital prescribed medicines at home, work or another convenient place.
The Department and NHS England recognise the importance of strengthening homecare medicine services and continue to prioritise improvements in this area following the House of Lords Public Services Committee’s report, Homecare medicines services: an opportunity lost. The recommendations accepted by the Department and NHS England continue to be explored and developed. Work is underway to scope the opportunities to improve how homecare services can be procured, contracted, and delivered to meet the future needs of the NHS. An update on progress will be provided to the House of Lords Public Services Committee later this year.
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