Is it time to revive community health services?

Is it time to revive community health services? Professionals, patients and politicians may be weary of further reorganisation, but community health services could lead the move to providing more out-of-hospital care

The answer, everyone agrees, is some model of out-of-hospital care, yet the report completely fails to mention a crucial component of any such model community health services (CHS), which undertake around 100m community contacts per annum. Why is this? And just what is going on with CHS?Another worthy report from the Commons health select committee was published last month, this one on managing the care of people with long-term conditions. The usual frightening statistics are rolled out the projected increase in numbers, complexity and impact, with 70% of total expenditure on health and social care in England now associated with the 30% of the population with long-term conditions. Giving evidence to the committee, the new chief executive of NHS England, Simon Stevens, posed the question "what is it going to take to make significant inroads?" Continue reading... The Guardian