Well being and social care to share £5bn integration funding

Norman Lamb stated that closer working amongst the sectors is crucial for delivering better patient care. Photograph: Steve Parsons/PA Wire/Press Association Pictures

Councils and NHS commissioners are set to share a pooled spending budget of more than £5bn to deliver integrated health and social care providers, a government minister has confirmed.

The care and help minister, Norman Lamb, told a social care conference that the government’s £3.8bn Far better Care Fund would be supplemented by even more funding from local authorities and clinical commissioning groups.

“Nearby areas have picked to be more ambitious, to pool more of their budgets than we had asked them to,” mentioned Lamb. “This has to be the start off of a shift towards a significantly higher pooling of sources.”

Speaking at the College for Social Care Study annual conference in London, Lamb explained closer functioning in between the sectors was essential for delivering much better patient care.

Sufferers did not want to “truly feel like they are becoming pushed from a single technique to an additional”, the minister mentioned, adding: “They don’t make a distinction between overall health and social care.”

But he conceded that a lack of mutual comprehending amongst the sectors – specially in between GPs and social care – was a barrier to joining up care.

Lamb advised delegates that policy on personal overall health budgets will be extended and from October, individuals will get not just a appropriate to request a personalized budget, but a appropriate to have a personalized price range.

Even so, 1 conference delegate commented that some medics see personal budgets as a “zombie policy”, explaining they are “still strolling but primarily dead”.

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Well being and social care to share £5bn integration funding