As we continue in our ongoing battle against Coronavirus, I want to begin my message this week with a thank you to everyone who is working so hard across Humber, Coast and Vale in all parts of our health and care system. As a health and care system, we can only be successful if all partners and all sectors in our Partnership are supported and enabled to thrive.
Our efforts to fight COVID-19 throw this into sharp relief. The social care sector is a key pillar of our Health and Care Partnership and we cannot function without it. There has been significant news coverage over the weekend of the impact of COVID-19 on care homes across the country and we are not exempt from these challenges.
Across Humber, Coast and Vale, thousands of carers are continuing to provide vital personal care and support to residents at home and within our many care homes across our region. Social workers are continuing to keep our most vulnerable children and adults safe and therapists, personal assistants, care home managers and other key professionals are continuing to work around the clock to provide the care and support local people need.
These are extremely challenging times for our colleagues within social care and many will be facing situations that they have never experienced before. As a Partnership, we need to continue to provide support and mutual aid across sectors and I have heard many good examples of this in my regular catch-ups with colleagues. Please continue to share the stories of your challenges and successes so that we can keep learning from one another and ensuring the needs of all sectors are represented and responded to.
Fully integrating social care into service provision is a key part of our long-term plan and will continue to be a focus for us over the coming months and years. We have been awaiting the Government green paper on the long-term future for social care funding in England, which has understandably been further delayed by the current COVID-19 pandemic.
This will, however, need to form part of any post-COVID-19 recovery plan and is an area where the Partnership can enable social care commissioners and providers to have a stronger collective voice to articulate the needs of the residents of Humber, Coast and Vale.
Our present situation demonstrates not just the interconnectedness of our health and social care services but also highlights the connections between economic security and wellbeing; between education and mental health; between housing and health.
As a Partnership we have an interest and a stake across all of these arenas and need to collaborate with a wide range of partners to enable the longer-term improvements we want to see to the health and wellbeing of our population.