Health department says new care fund is ‘on track’

The Department of Health has insisted plans for a fund to deliver more care in the community are on track, despite reports that a confidential Cabinet Office review had questioned its viability, delaying its implementation.

The £3.8bn Better Care Fund, announced last year, is intended to fund initiatives that will help move care out of hospitals, relieving some of the pressure on them.

Both the health department and the local government department, which has responsibility for social care, are contributing to a cross-departmental funding pot – a relative rarity in Whitehall.

But, in an interview with the FT in March, Sir David Nicholson, the outgoing chief executive of the NHS in England, aired concerns that the health service would struggle to cope with having almost £1.9bn sliced off its budget to be allocated to the Better Care Fund.

He suggested the NHS would need an extra £2bn of transitional funding in 2015-16 to ease the adjustment.

The Guardian reported on Wednesday that a Cabinet Office report had been critical of the fund, in particular questioning whether the promised savings in the budget for hospital care would materialise.

The Cabinet Office said it did not comment on leaked documents.

The health department said that the year running up to the scheme’s implementation in April 2015, had always been intended as a period when plans from local areas would be examined to ensure they were robust.

It said: “Successive governments and health leaders have talked about joining up health and social care for decades – the Better Care Fund is a major step to making this a reality.”

It added it had set aside time to make sure areas had developed “comprehensive” plans for care in the community and the Better Care Fund.

Source The Financial Times