Agenda item

To approve the Better Care Fund.

The Service Delivery Manager: Hospital and Enablement, Telford & Wrekin Council, gave a presentation on the Better Care Fund in order to highlight the work that had taken place during the previous two years.

It was requested that delegated authority be granted to the Chair to sign the Better Care Fund.

The Better Care Fund had national priorities that were updated annually or every two years and looked at wider integrated working.  Key themes were capacity and demand, place, prevention and urgent care.

Each quarter had been assessed on a different set of questions with quarter four marking year end.  It highlighted progress, success and the challenges faced.

The updated plan for the coming year had undergone some remodelling but it was still focussed on admissions to hospital and discharges, how money was handed and place and prevention.  It also highlighted a Discharge Fund.

Other areas of work had included resilience, support for carers, safeguarding and independent advocacy and linked in with prevention and place schemes. 

The BCF linked into strategies across the council and partners, with the themes of most plans being person centred.

The Service Delivery Manager: Hospital and Enablement presented case studies as illustrative examples of the work being undertaken and spoke about the use of technology that could be used to maximise independent without the need for care.

There had been an increase in demand in quarter two but generally performance was on track, although slightly outside on the normal place of residence and it was expected that not all the data catching was completely accurate.  The recovery unit was a step down from hospital and the normal place of residence figures were being affected.  This area of work needed to be linked in order to get a better picture. 

In relation to finance, they were generally in line with where it was expected to be but there had been some cost pressures in enablement and they were currently investigating how costs could be mitigated.  Work was currently being undertaken to see if extra care beds could be used in a more formal setting and if it was successful, she how this work for the next year end.

In conclusion, work was to continue on stabilising demand and cost, reducing domiciliary care from 40 day in bed to 35 days, confirm funding for additional therapists, develop the care transfer hub, look at the supporting the flow process from discharge from hospitals and support the pathways in relation to going home from hospital.

During the debate, it was felt that more was being spent on acute care rather than preventative care and that the BCF should be used to move to a different model.

The Service Delivery Manager: Hospital and Enablement, Telford & Wrekin Council responded that areas of recent work had been looking at areas of spend, overall enablement and the use of beds.  It also looked at where the national teams Better Care Fund could be built to enable a Care Transfer Fund and how costs could be moved in order to be more financially viable and how length of stay was taken forward.

The second area that had been investigated was how all funding could be used differently by changing pathways and how funding could be split into different areas.  He also confirmed that this was a similar discussion that was taking place in acute hospitals.

Upon being put to the vote it was:

RESOLVED: that

a)    the progress to date be supported;

b)   the BCF submissions be approved; and

c)    delegated authority be granted for the Chair to sign the Better Care Fund.