A Whitehall social care chief has pledged to bring pooled budgets for people with learning difficulties to whoever forms the next government by early summer. Under a grilling from MPs calling for urgent action, the Department of Health's director general of social care, Jon Rouse, said a national framework for pooled budgets, based on the Care Act, would have to wait until a Green Paper that will go before minister after the General Election. Mr Rouse made the pledge in evidence given to the public accounts committee this week. But committee chair Margaret Hodge said the idea of putting it in a Green Paper and delaying action filled her 'with horror'. Ms Hodge said: 'If you take Salford as an example, it took them a decade to get to this stage. We don't need to talk about it. We just need to get on and do it.'
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