To make something happen, you need two things: the need and the belief. The need for health and social care to integrate is undisputed, with buy in from stakeholders across the board. And the past 12+ months of lived experience through the pandemic has given us the belief that we can pull together to make it happen. We’ve undergone a mindset shift from ‘you can’t do that’ to ‘how can we make it happen?’.

However, if we look to Scotland, which legislated for more integrated health and care over five years ago, it’s still grappling with exactly that. A recent briefing published by the Scottish Parliament’s research body confirmed there hasn’t been a major shift of money from hospitals into social care or community; nor have the underlying structures or operation of health and social care changed.