During the evidence session as part of its work on the 10-Year Health Plan, the committee heard evidence from senior representatives from the NHS, social care, nursing and GPs.

Committee chair Layla Moran MP said: ‘It has been an ambition of successive Governments to shift healthcare from hospitals to community settings and we all agree that this shift needs to take place, but as we have heard from our witnesses today, there need to be clear actions and incentives to back up the Government's ambition.

‘While most of the incentives and targets announced so far seem to be on acute care, we worry that when competing priorities collide, the politically less urgent community care will not get the prioritisation it needs. We will be questioning the secretary of state on how the Government intends to achieve this shift, in our hearing with him next week.'

The session also heard comments from general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, Nicola Ranger, on the proposed public sector pay rise.

Moran said: ‘As we heard from the General Secretary of the RCN today, nurses' concerns are not only on this year's proposed public sector pay rise, but fundamentally on the need for structural reform for nursing, to address the issues of workforce shortages and staff retention, and in order to enable the shift from hospital to community, and we encourage the Government to engage in this issue in its discussions with them.'