Professor Vic Rayner OBE, chief executive of the National Care Forum (NCF), has highlighted the need for greater collaboration across health and social care to improve out-of-hospital care and provide more support to people closer to home.

Providing an overview of the ongoing challenges facing the health and social care sector, Rayner called for innovation in developing new community care models that can meet a changing society post-Covid-19, to address the needs of groups of people who have been left out or excluded from the health and care agenda.

Speaking to healthcare leaders, the NCF head highlighted to health colleagues the importance of having social care providers represented at Integrated Care Board level to ensure that new community care models have every chance of success on the ground, and are effectively coordinated and joined up.

“The social care reform paper has huge ambitions to enable integrated care and health for people. Yet there must be robust social care voices at the top table and opportunities for social care providers to share their wealth of knowledge and expertise at the heart of the health and care system”, said Rayner.

She also called for more investment in the social care workforce and for the urgent need for a fully funded People Plan for social care that provides clear career progression, better recognition, terms and conditions and investment in training and development.