Macmillan responds to the Health Select Committee's report on Social Care

Commenting on the Health Select Committee’s report on Social Care published today, Duleep Allirajah, Head of Policy at Macmillan Cancer Support, said:

'We welcome the Health Select Committee’s report on social care published today. In particular, we are pleased to see that it recognises the urgent need to reform the way that social care is funded and to integrate the health and social care systems in order to better meet patients’ needs.

'Ensuring that patients are offered an integrated package of care is particularly important for people at the end of life. We know that far too often peoples’ choices about where they die are not respected because of a breakdown between the health and social care systems. This can result in people dying in hospital unnecessarily due to delays in being discharged. This is not only terribly distressing for both patients and their families but is also extremely costly for the NHS.

'We are therefore calling for the Government to support the principle of free social care for people who have been placed on an end of life care register[1] in the upcoming Social Care White Paper. This would put an end to the wrangling between the health and social care systems and would promote people’s right to die in the place of their choosing.'

For further information, please contact:

Claire Keuls, Media & PR Officer
020 7840 4872 (out of hours 07801 307 068)
ckeuls@macmillan.org.uk|

Notes to Editors:

[1]The independent Palliative Care Funding Review, published in July 2011, recommended that once a patient reaches the end of life stage, and is put on an end of life locality register, all health and social care should be funded by the state and free at the point of delivery.

About Macmillan Cancer Support

Macmillan Cancer Support improves the lives of people affected by cancer, providing practical, medical, emotional and financial support.  Working alongside people affected by cancer, Macmillan works to improve cancer care. One in three of us will get cancer. Two million of us are living with it. If you are affected by cancer Macmillan can help.