In March 2021, the C&AG submitted evidence to the Health and Social Care Committee inquiry into the Department of Health & Social Care’s White Paper, ‘Integration and Innovation: working together to improve health and social care’. This drew on the National Audit Office’s past body of work to highlight the main risks and opportunities the White Paper presents, both in terms of effective implementation of the proposed reforms and in terms of making progress towards overarching health and social care policy aims.

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In February 2021, the Department of Health and Social Care published a White Paper, Integration and innovation: working together to improve health and social care for all. The House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee subsequently launched an inquiry into the White Paper’s proposals and issued a call for evidence. Our evidence submission draws on the National Audit Office’s published work to highlight the main risks and opportunities we see in the White Paper. We have identified five areas where we believe the Department and the NHS must pay particular attention:

•            achieving integration at the local level;

•            financial sustainability;

•            wider system reform;

•            securing change in adult social care; and

•            national-level governance.

A Health and Care Bill related to the proposals in the White Paper began to be considered by Parliament on 6 July 2021.

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