The Better Care Fund by the government was announced in June 2013. It is a funding mechamism, covering the period 2014/15 and 2015/16 intended to incentivise integration of health and social services and more specifically to reduce hospital admissions. North, Central and South Cliinical Commissioning Groups, together with Manchester City Council will decide shortly how their slice of national funding will be spent, as projects need to be put in place rapidly.
The Better Care Fund is not additional money, it is a transfer from existing NHS funding and If the projects fail to achieve the proposed outcomes then they stand to lose a proportion of their funding. Due to the rapidity of the process most of the funding will be used for existing projects but there are a few projects that have been developed in response to the funding. On the whole, voluntary and community sector participation have been limited.
In Central Manchester the projects are linked to the Living Longer, Living Better programme and are likely to include services that focus on: complex adults; end of life; frail elderly people; and people with long term conditions. The key to continued funding will be performance against the Better Care Fund targets: reducing admissions to residential and care homes; the effectiveness of reablement services; reduction in delays in transfer of care; reducing avoidable admissions; and better patient/service user experience.