Deal sought to pool health and care
Author: Jamie Hailstone, the MJ |
Council leaders and healthcare professionals will need to ‘develop a shared view’ of services, according to the latest guidelines issued by the Local Government Association (LGA) and NHS England.
In a letter to chief executives, directors of adult services and clinical commissioning group (CCG) leads, the LGA chief executive Carolyn Downs and NHS England director Bill McCarthy outlined the next steps in implementing the Government’s 3.8bn integration transformation fund, which starts in April 2014.
According to the notes, the pooled budget will comprise 1.9bn from the NHS, 1.1bn from an existing transfer from health to social care.
The budget will also contain 130m from money for carers’ breaks, 300m from CCG re-ablement and 354m capital funding.
The notes said that a condition of the new joined-up budgets is that the local authority must agree with local health partners about how the money should be best used within social care.
Councils will also have to demonstrate how the new money will make a positive difference to social care services and outcomes for users.
Local authorities will receive details of their specific funding allocations after the Autumn Statement on 4 December and the allocations will be fixed for two years to enable planning.
The chief executive of Northamptonshire CC, Paul Blantern, has warned 275m will need to be saved by the NHS and social services in his county by 2019.
Dr Blantern said the main savings from the county’s 2.5bn total health budget will be through greater emphasis on prevention.
‘We are putting a lot of effort into looking at ways of keeping people from using services they don’t need to,’ said Dr Blantern.
‘Our social care services are also becoming more involved so that better decisions can be made about the type of care that individuals need.’