15 March 2002
In a speech to health care professionals in London this week, he acknowledged that social services needed more funding, especially if they were to help unblock beds in acute hospitals by providing more care packages in residential homes or the community.
'There is no doubt that we need to build hospital services up, not least to get waiting times down,' Milburn said.
'But tackling waiting lists cannot be achieved by more investment in hospitals alone. It needs more investment in social services - alongside primary and community services - too.'
But he added that sustained investment was conditional on more reform. 'If more money is available for social services as well as for health services, there must be no more excuses for shuffling responsibility for people who are old, disabled or mentally ill backwards and forwards between the two services,' he said.
Joint working must become the norm, he added, and could include the formation of Care Trusts, new organisations that would combine primary and social care.
He said: 'We will need to explore new incentivesÉ Reform will mean giving patients what they need - one care system, not two.'
Last weekend, leaders of ten Southeast local authorities demanded urgent meetings with Milburn and Chancellor Gordon Brown over what they said was 'meltdown' in social care in their areas.
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