Last Updated on April 28, 2017

The Government’s £5.3bn Better Care Fund, designed to get health and social care services working together, is being held back by too much red-tape, a report by the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) and the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) shows.

The Better Care Fund – Six Months On reveals more needs to be done to ensure the success of the Better Care Fund. However, the fund has already begun to produce improved working relationships between NHS bodies and local public services.

Rob Whiteman, CIPFA Chief Executive, said, ‘Government must do more to support effective governance of the Better Care Fund. This is a real opportunity to get health and social care working together – focusing on prevention before cure – saving lives, time and money.

‘I commend the aim of the Better Care Fund but its administration must be simplified if it is to deliver a meaningful impact.’

Paul Briddock, HFMA Director of Policy said, ‘It’s positive that the report shows in just six months of the Better Care Fund being put in place, organisations are already beginning to integrate services and collaborate more. What is now needed as a next step, is for targeted streamlining and simplification of processes to take place.’

The report is based on the results of an HFMA and CIPFA joint finance staff survey of NHS bodies and local authorities representing almost a third of Better Care Fund sites.

Many of the 48 organisations that responded, representing £3.6bn of the total fund, said they had already experienced a positive improvement in dialogue across local public sector bodies.

The Better Care Fund has also led to investment in innovative ways that respondents felt would not have taken place otherwise.

However, the number of positive responses was countered by some negative feedback; specifically focusing on complicated governance and unrealistic expectations of what can be achieved.

In the response to the survey results, HFMA and CIPFA have called upon the Government to:

• Simplify and streamline the administrative and monitoring arrangements of the Better Care Fund prior to 2016/17.
• Ensure there is maximum synergy between Better Care Fund and the emerging devolution programme – which is likely to prove the most sustainable model for taking forward integration at scale.
• Use the lessons learnt from the Better Care Fund so far in plans for full integration of health and social care by 2017 to be implemented in 2020.

The report is available to read from the CIPFA website here.