Memorandum by Macmillan Cancer Relief
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HEALTH & SOCIAL
SERVICES (HSS 68)
7. CONCLUSION
Macmillan has direct experience of the problems
faced by patients as a result of the current relationship between
health and social care providers. In particular, our Patient Grants
Department experiences the practical implications for patients
of the problems outlined above.
As a result of the often poor working relationship
between the health service and local authority social services
departments, patients are held in the acute sector because care
packages have not been planned. Alternatively, patients are discharged
into the community without the support they need. Macmillan's
Patient Grants Department provides a safety net of social care
and makes grants to cancer patients in financial need to a current
annual total of about £5 million.
Macmillan trusts that the Health Select Committee
Inquiry will prove the catalyst to ensure that Government proposals
outlined in the NHS White Paper are speedily taken forward to
rectify this situation in favour of improved patient care.
February 1998
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