The key to securing better outcomes for older people and other vulnerable groups is joined-up services, MPs on the Health Select Committee have said.

According to the Committee, older people are being let down by fragmented care services, which are also costing the NHS too much and harming the organisation’s efficiency.

Launching the report of a recent inquiry into Social Care (HC 1583, Fourteenth Report of Session 2010-12) Stephen Dorrell MP, chair of the Health Committee, said: "This report is the latest in a long line of reports which have stressed the importance of joined up services. It is impossible to deliver either high quality or efficient services when the patient is passed like a parcel from one part of the system to another, without any serious attempt to look at their needs in the round.

“This obvious truth has often been repeated, but seldom acted upon. The funding for NHS care, social care and social housing comes from different sources. Apart from a few exceptions like Torbay Care Trust in Devon, attempts to join up these funds and to integrate services have been disappointing.

“We welcome the government’s stated determination to tackle this long standing issue; the key is to move beyond restating the aspiration to addressing the question of 'how'."

The Committee is also urging government to:

• Co-ordinate policy more effectively across Whitehall and regularly rebalance national spending across health, housing and care services.
• Replace the three overlapping but “confusing” frameworks that currently exist with one outcomes framework for older people.
• Recognise the widening “funding gap” in social care services, between the number of people who need care and the amount of money currently in the system to deal with their (rising) needs.
• Accept the recommendations in the Dilnot report for a series of caps on care costs and identify the level at which it thinks these caps should be set.
• Take steps to ensure that GPs identify much earlier and assess more clearly the needs of carers providing essential informal care to the old and the vulnerable.
• Develop a new, integrated legal framework to support integration of health, social care and other services around the needs of the individual.