District nurses are an ‘absolutely vital part’ of the NHS that are often ‘undervalued and understaffed’, the health secretary has said.
Appearing before the Health and Social Care Select Committee yesterday, health and social care secretary Wes Streeting was being quizzed on the government’s 10 Year Health Plan when he repeated his commitment to ‘rebuild community care’.
‘If you think about the role that district nurses play, for example, in terms of the shadowing I’ve done of district nurses, I think district nurses are an absolutely vital part of the NHS,’ he said.
‘But if you talk to people in the nursing profession, they’d say it’s actually been undervalued and understaffed.’
Mr Streeting told the cross-party committee that he wanted to see more care ‘close to home and indeed in people’s homes’, and said he would be announcing more plans and investment into community care in the coming months.
‘Without pre-empting decisions which are still in the final stage of being taken, I think people will see in the choices I’m making about how to invest in the coming year that will be walking the talk on hospital to community,’ he explained.
Yesterday’s evidence session comes as part of the Health and Social Care Committee’s inquiry into the development of the government’s 10 Year Health Plan.
In the same meeting, Mr Streeting confirmed that an announcement on hospice national insurance (NI) arrangements will be made next week, with further announcements on GP, social care and pharmacy funding to be made in January.
As part of a separate evidence session for this inquiry in November, those behind the Darzi review – a major investigation into the state of the health service – told the committee that having an accurate count of the community nursing workforce was ‘critical’ to the success of shifting care out of hospitals.
This came after Lord Ara Darzi’s review of the NHS found that a lack of investment in community services and its nursing services had left the NHS in a ‘critical condition.
On Tuesday, the committee launched an inquiry into the provision of adult community mental health services, including community mental health nursing.
And last month, the committee launched an inquiry into the ‘cost of inaction’ in adult social care reform and is looking to hear from nurses affected by insufficient changes to the sector.
