49 Better Care Fund (formerly known as the Integration Transformation Fund) - Sign Off PDF 192 KB
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Minutes:
Following the presentation given at the previous Health and Wellbeing Board (HWB) meeting the Director had prepared a report which outlined a proposal for the joint use of the Better Care Fund (BCF), previously referred to by the Department of Health as the Integration Transformation Fund (ITF). The intention of the fund was to support an increase in the scale and pace of integration between health and social care and provide a mechanism for promoting joint planning for the sustainability of local health and care economies against a background of significant savings targets right across the system.
In addition to the overarching integration agenda a number of national conditions and measures are attached to the fund designed to move resources across the system towards prevention and short term care interventions and away from high cost care packages in residential or acute settings.
Locally the Chairman of the Board and Directors from both the Local Authority and Bromley’s Clinical Commissioning Group were proposing to use the Fund to:
Access to the BCF was dependent on agreement of a local 2-year plan for 2014/15 (the planning year) and 2015/16 (first full year). The plans had been first agreed jointly by the Local Authority and Bromley’s Clinical Commissioning Group and authorised by their respective Executives.
A template has been produced nationally for local areas to complete their submissions to NHS England. This template had been completed locally and attached to the report for the Board’s consideration.
The final sign off required before the Local Plan could be submitted to NHS England needed to be provided by the Board. One of the critical responsibilities for HWBs, as set out in the Health and Care Act 2012, was to encourage joint working and integration in their locality wherever there were clear benefits to the local population. The BCF provided a vehicle that could be used to sustain and accelerate this agenda as well as support the creation of a pooled budget.
The timetable for submission was very tight and Bromley’s submission had to be with NHS England by 14th February. The final deadline was 4th April 2014 which gave officers time to finalise the indicative budgets.
The Board requested an outline setting out how the funding could be used. One of the areas of change would be ... view the full minutes text for item 49