Choice and partnership with the NHS are the keys to delivering a 21st century social care system, the health secretary told delegates at the Association of Directors of Social Services (ADSS) conference in Brighton today.
Addressing an audience of people working across adult and children's social services, Patricia Hewitt said she was determined to ensure that social care was appreciated on the same level as health and said that a strong and vibrant social care service was vital to the government's attempts to achieve social justice.
Ms Hewitt highlighted the success of personalised services such as individual budgets, direct payments and the "in control" programme which gives service users more control to personally manage the care services they receive.
Yet despite client satisfaction, only 30,000 out of a potential 1.7m people are using these services.
"The real challenge was to extend these schemes from the margins to the mainstream," she said. Ms Hewitt also drew attention to the crucial role that partnership between the NHS and social care providers will play in the future; not least, she pointed out, because each pound spent in social care saves healthcare 30p by preventing visits to GPs or hospital admissions.
Joint commissioning and pooling health and social care budgets will be the way forward, she said.
Next week's local government white paper is expected to set out clear frameworks for joint commissioning and joint agreements.
Ms Hewitt said that she wanted fewer centrally-determined targets and greater flexibility for local partners to react to local circumstances and work together towards shared outcomes.
On a more controversial note, the minister continued to prise open the door for more voluntary and private sector organisations and social enterprises to deliver social care by stressing the need for commissioners to be free to design services using "the best, most appropriate and most cost-effective providers".
More efficient, value-for-money services were essential, said Ms Hewitt.
She described the current funding of social care as unsustainable in the longer term.
The government is to establish six policy review groups as part of the work it is doing for the Comprehensive Spending Review - one of them on public services.
Ms Hewitt said that the ADSS and the public would be involved in discussions about the big social challenges facing individuals, families and society over the next decade and beyond.
