Dr Joshua Macaulay, Director at Westmorland Homecare, argues that health and social care need to be more joined up to tackle challenges facing this country

The NHS and social care are under extreme pressure and can’t cope in their current form.

Our population is growing rapidly, and the number of people aged over 85 is set to more than double in the next twenty years. Our current health care and social care systems won’t cope and we are running out of money fast.

Crucially our current model of health care hasn’t changed since the NHS was set up in 1948 and the cracks are starting to show.

The NHS was first formed by Aneurin Bevan at Park Hospital in Manchester with an ambitious plan to provide free health care for all. Since then the NHS has been a world class institution and a pioneering model for the rest of the world, but if we don’t keep up with the pace of change all this is as risk.

As a resident of South Lakes, a doctor at Westmorland General Hospital and Director at Westmorland Homecare, I am passionate about creating the best care and making sure our older population get outstanding care. For me this is something that is crucially important and I feel we have a moral and ethical duty to fight for it.

Our older population are the people who built the country we live in, fought for the freedom we have. They created the NHS, they built the buildings we work in and they raised the friends and family we cherish today. We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the older population and we must all be advocates for them when they cannot shout for themselves.

The staff working in the NHS and social care continue to inspire me every day. I see an amazing tapestry of people working tremendously hard without praise or thanks to do their best despite the enormous pressures put on them.

Our GP colleagues and primary care staff routinely work 12-14 hour days just to keep above water with their workload. Equally our hospitals are under extreme pressure with their staff juggling full wards, bed blocking and yet more ambulances arriving.

Our ambulance services are working tirelessly with dedication and professionalism against ever-increasing call volumes and reducing resources.

This week I saw a parent rush into A&E with their child in their arms when he had breathing difficulties and on 'phoning 999 the service was so overwhelmed the parent had been put on hold in a queue for minutes until they hung up. Hospitals now routinely have corridors of patients waiting on trolleys to get into A&E. Is this a world class leading system or does this remind you more of a third world health service?

Our social services department is also struggling to cope, with the social work team being some of the most overworked, underpaid and under-appreciated of all the health and social care professionals. As care provision is rationed more and more, increasing numbers of people must manage without the care they need.

But what if health care and social care were more joined up? What if instead of treating episodes of illness one at a time we saw the whole person?

I believe health care and social care are the same thing - it's just called care.

Good social care ensures good health and good health leads to less social needs. For example, regular hydration preserves kidney function, good nutrition keeps the whole body healthy, regular activity preserves the mind, joints, muscles and mobility. Ensuring medications are taken may come under social care but it impacts dramatically on health.

If services try to bounce people between health and social care and don’t work together then nobody benefits. Let’s make health care and social care one department for the overall good of both departments and the patients.