• City and Hackney CCG to pool £335m of its budget with two local councils
  • Two joint commissioning boards will oversee health and social care budgets for Hackney and the City of London

A London clinical commissioning group is set to pool the majority of its budget with two local councils under plans to integrate health and social care commissioning.

City and Hackney CCG, Hackney council and the City of London council have plans to pool almost all of their health and social care budgets from April. They will set up shared commissioning boards to oversee the pooled funds – one for Hackney and one for the City.

The move is due to be approved this week. According to CCG board papers, City and Hackney CCG will put £335m into the pooled budget in 2017-18, with Hackney and the City of London councils putting in £111m and £6m respectively. The CCG had a total allocation of £369m in 2016-17.

According to the document, this will cover the budgets for all adult social care, public health and the majority of health commissioning across the boroughs.

The papers, published on 24 February, said: “The pooled budget will initially be made up of CCG, adult social care and public health resources where there has been agreement to pool theses resources to deliver integrated commissioning and the locality plan. It will also include the better care fund.”

However, they added: “In line with the delegation agreement with NHS England, core primary care will remain outside the integrated commissioning model and outside the pooled budget arrangements.”

Budgets will be pooled using a section 75 agreement and powers over the budgets will be transferred to the integrated commissioning boards.

The documents make clear that despite integration measures, the CCG governing body will “remain accountable for delivery of its statutory responsibilities and operating within its constitution”.

“The CCG [chief officer] as a member of each [integrated commissioning board] will carry the bulk of this responsibility along with the CCG chair and CCG lay member,” the papers added.

Funds that cannot be legally pooled will remain with the CCG in an “aligned budget”. The integrated boards will not have power over the aligned budget but will offer recommendations.

The services the CCG will remain responsible for include: surgery, radio therapy, termination of pregnancies, endoscopy, laser treatment and emergency ambulance services.

Topics