Healthcare professionals to be assigned to care homes under £3.5bn government investment

Healthcare professionals, including pharmacists and GPs, are to be assigned to care homes under a £3.5bn investment announced by the government.

The initiative, which was announced by Prime Minister Theresa May, is part of new funding for community and primary healthcare that is designed to keep more people out of hospital.

The national roll-out following a successful pilot aims to offer a more “personalised” service to care home residents by enabling healthcare professionals to get to know individuals’ needs so that they can provide tailored treatment and support.

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The teams include pharmacists and GPs who can also offer emergency care out of hours.

Analysis suggests that over a third of hospital admissions from care homes are avoidable.

Martin Green, CEO of Care England, told CHP: “Care England welcomes this new money for the social care sector and it will really help to develop more appropriate services for people whose discharge is delayed because of a lack of social care provision.

“This new money will only be effective if it is used to develop services in the independent care sector. The government must understand that the NHS has to work more effectively with care providers, and this money will only deliver a solution to delayed transfers of care, if there is a real partnership between acute and primary health services and care providers.”