Exclusive: CCGs and councils set to pool more than £5bn in 2015-16

They have agreed to pool more than a third over and above the £3.8bn they are required to do under the policy, according to early indications in their plans.

The funds will be pooled and overseen by health and wellbeing boards, meaning both councils and clinical commissioning groups will jointly develop plans for and decide how it is used.

Ministers announced the better care fund, initially called the integration transformation fund, in summer last year, saying it would encourage joint working between health and social care services

The government said there would be a minimum of £3.8bn pooled nationally in 2015-16, £3.4bn of which will be funded by the NHS.

The additional £1.4bn has been pledged by a mixture CCGs and local government, HSJ understands, although the Department of Health has not yet completed analysis of the source of or plans for spending the money.

Health and wellbeing boards sent draft plans for the use of the fund to NHS England in February and final plans are due next month.

Care and support minister Norman Lamb told HSJ the £5.2bn could rise further, as some health and wellbeing boards had not yet confirmed plans, or were still looking at extending it further.

He said early plans were an “encouragement” and said: “I’m delighted that there is that sense of ambition in lots of areas to go well beyond the minimum. The better care fund is acting as a real catalyst for some really dynamic thinking.”

Mr Lamb said plans submitted last month exhibited a “range of quality”. “There’s inevitably variability. Some are brilliant, some are less well developed.” He said NHS England and the DH would work to improve the poorer plans, while being as “collaborative as possible”.

Areas known to be planning to pool more than the minimum required sum include Sunderland, Oxfordshire, and several areas in the West Midlands.

HSJ has also been told of doubts about how much of the pooled fund will be spend on transformed services, rather than paying for existing ones.

Norwich CCG chief executive Jonathon Fagge said he had agreed a third of his CCG’s contribution to the Better Care Fund in Norfolk could be spent on maintaining existing social care services.

 “I don’t have an issue with that because the gaps in social care would otherwise generate health costs, so it’s a legitimate thing to do,” he said.

Mr Fagge said it would also increase investment in rehabilitation and reablement, extending social care services working with the NHS through the week, and potentially integrating social care and continuing health care procurement.

A Foundation Trust Network spokesman said: “If early progress is not seen then hospital admissions will not decrease and £2bn will have been taken out of the acute sector for little patient benefit.”

The spokesman said: “Many providers still feel excluded from the process [of planning use of the funds].”