Agenda item - Better Care Plan

RESOLVED: That the Health & Wellbeing Boarded noted the contents of the report.

7.1       Chris Clark introduced the report and stated that the Board would be receiving regular reports on the Better Care Plan. The report detailed services largely around supporting patients leaving hospital. The Better Care Plan had robust governance arrangements with a steering group jointly chaired by the CCG and Council which was accountable to the Health & Wellbeing Board. There had been a relatively small overspend in the previous financial year which was due to an overspend on community equipment. Potential efficiencies in the service were now being investigated including increasing the rate of equipment recycling.

7.2       Councillor Taylor stated that he was surprised that recycling equipment was not already a core part of the community equipment service but was glad that this was now being looked at. He also asked if officers could provide details of how the overspend was split between the Council and CCG per the section 75 agreement.

7.3       Chris Clark responded he would be able to provide the details of how the overspend was divided to Councillor Taylor and the other members of the Board in writing.

7.4       Officers responded that the contract for community equipment already required the provider to recycle equipment but there was additional work that could be done around managing service users’ expectations when they were prescribed equipment; that it did not belong to them and that it would be collected when they no longer required it.

7.5       Councillor Taylor stated that while it was good that delayed transfers of care were not increasing he had noted that they were also not improving and ask what steps were being taken to move forward. He also asked if comparator data could be provided as the data for the city out of context was difficult to evaluate.

7.6       Chris Clark responded that delayed transfers of care had declined from 11% under the old system to 4% but this was over the NHS national target of 3.5%. Compared to other areas Brighton & Hove had moved from being an outlier to the middle of the pack but there was certainly aspirations in the city to move ahead and take delayed transfers of care below 3.5%.

7.7       Councillor Janio stated that he was concerned that the KPIs that were reported did not correlate to a spending item and so it was difficult to know what was affecting performance and what the impact would be of a change in budgets.

7.8       Chris Clark responded that while it was correct that the KPIs were impacted by multiple factors when considering potential impact of changes in budget KPIs are combined with performance intelligence around the most common problems. There was a process of continuous assessment.

7.9       Councillor Page stated that the Better Care Fund had had a substantial pooled budget for a number of years and that it was fair to say that the city benefited from a fairly strong re-ablement service. He asked what officers felt the impact on the service would be if the Better Care Fund was discontinued.

7.10    Chris Clark responded that the Fund was an early example of integrated funding and whether or not it continued the integrated working practises would continue.

7.11    Malcolm Dennett stated that he felt the report represented a dramatic step forward as the previous year the Board had just been considering financial information and it was positive to see performance metrics to show what had actually been done.

7.12    RESOLVED: That the Health & Wellbeing Boarded noted the contents of the report.