Agenda item

Geoff Alltimes and Richard Humphries will be present for this report.

Updates on two programmes of work were presented.  The first, an update on the work of the Commission on the Future of Health and Social Care, was presented by Geoff Alltimes, commission member and LGA Associate and Richard Humphries, Senior Fellow, King’s Fund.

In particular, Geoff and Richard were keen to hear the Board’s views in relation to the proposals outlined in the Commission’s interim report.

In the discussion that followed, the Board made the following points:

·         That prevention programmes would always be a key element of any attempt to reduce costs in the long term;

·         That the principle of integration of health and social care budgets was broadly accepted and the BCF programme should inform this debate and be given time to bed down;

·         That the public must be engaged in this debate at the earliest opportunity;

·         The fact that the impact of the ageing population on health costs is a key driver and needed to be made more explicit in the paper;

·         Governance structures were seen as complex at the present time, especially in the NHS, and simplification of this, alongside clarity around health scrutiny would be welcome; and

The Board endorsed the Commission’s interim report and supports its ongoing work.  Of the Commission’s options for bringing more money into the health and social care system, Option 1 (improved productivity) was taken as a given.  Within Options 2 and 3 (raise more private funding and raise more public funding respectively) the Board agreed there were a number of ideas that warranted further exploration.  It was also agreed that this should not be at the expense of embedding the BCF or giving space and time to deliver other current initiatives on integration and prevention.

Geoff Alltimes welcomed the views expressed by the Board in the discussion and looked forward to receiving the LGA’s formal response in due course.

The second half of the paper was presented by Alyson Morley, Senior Adviser.  This paper, the detail of which is under embargo until the LGA conference, will form a central plank of the LGAs influencing work on the main issues facing local government in the run up to the next election.  The Board were informed that the policy development on the future design of adult social care and health, featured prominently in all the LGA’s influencing work.

In broad terms, the Board was reassured that:

·         Prevention and integration would be a key component of the policy messages;

·         Integration of health and social care is central to the future sustainability of local government and the NHS;

·         Public and local accountability issues would also be set out including the central role of the Health and Wellbeing Boards working with clinical leaders to engage local communities in discussions about the future shape of health and social care services;

·         Proposals for sustainable funding structures for health and social care would be set out; and

·         The key messages would be developed with the NHS national stakeholders.

Board members were invited to feed their comments to either Alyson Morley or Matthew Hibberd.

Actions:

Officers to respond to the Barker Commission, feeding in Members’ views.

Decision:

Members noted the report