The need for integrated care to improve people’s experience of health and social care, the outcomes achieved and the efficient use of resources has never been greater.
The June 2013 Spending Round announced the creation of a £3.8 billion Integration Transformation Fund – now referred to as the Better Care Fund – described as ‘a single pooled budget for health and social care services to work more closely together in local areas, based on a plan agreed between the NHS and local authorities.
The Better Care Fund offers a real opportunity to address immediate pressures on services and lay foundations for a much more integrated system of health and care delivered at scale and pace. But it will create risks as well as opportunities. The £3.8 billion is not new or additional money and commissioners will have to make important decisions about how the grant is used.
Making best use of the Better Care Fund: spending to save? offers an evidence-based guide to aid the discussions between clinical commissioning groups, local authorities and health and wellbeing boards. It presents evidence from The King’s Fund and others in a number of different areas – for example, primary prevention; self-care; case management – and emphasises that this evidence must be interpreted and used with a sound understanding of the key local challenges and the underlying issues that need to be addressed.
Download the references for Making best use of the Better Care Fund
More on the Better Care Fund
- Listen to Richard Humphries and Laura Bennett talk through our Better Care Fund evidence summary
- Catch up with the highlights from our Better Care Fund learning event
- Read Richard Humphries's blog: The Better Care Fund: what’s love got to do with it?
Comments
If the 'Better Care Fund' is to make a difference it is important that careful 'Monitoring' takes place across the entire Country, to include an Annual Return to NHS England with a Breakdown of exactly how it was used, and how it benefited those 'groups' that received this funding.
The 'Better Care Fund' Annual Returns from (all) should be available on line for Public Viewing.
I have viewed the previous comment and suggest that my idea for Annual Returns including 'breakdowns' on 'groups' benefiting, available on line is an easier concept, which includes 'TRANSPARENCY'
Having done some project work for a CCG implementing the 'BCF', the fundamentals that have to be addressed and will be asked are 1) why does the change need to happen? 2) who will benefit? 3) who will not benefit? 4) Can it be justified?. I have found that doing the diagnostics through an Equality Impact Analysis (EIA) will definitely help with these questions particularly in defining any health inequalities. There is the statutory requirement of providing 'due regard' to the 'protected characteristics' (defined by the Equality Act 2010) of any adverse and positive impact of the changes and engaging with stakeholders representing the 'protected characteristics' (not just Health Watch or the HWB).
Please let me know if you need help or further advice.
Dipen
dipen@engagementandequalitysolutions.co.uk
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