Wolverhampton healthcare to benefit from £70m funding

Wolverhampton City Council and Wolverhampton Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) will both share resources from the Government's Better Care Fund for the 2015/16 financial year.

The aim of the Better Care Fund is to bring together health information, staff, money and share risk responsibility.

It is hoped it will reduce the number of people needing hospital care by investing more in community-based services and encouraging people to take more responsibility for their own health.

It was announced in December that the Wolverhampton Better Care Fund plan had been approved by NHS England.

The money is split between services handled by the CCG, which will receive £48m and services handled by the council, which will get £22.8m, with £2.1m coming from capital grants.

Councillor Sandra Samuels, Wolverhampton's health boss, said: "The Better Care Fund is a great opportunity to get health and social care working together.

"In the past we have said that this is something that needs to be done because separating the two just will not work.

"We are hoping that the money and this fresh approach will greatly benefit the services we are focusing on."

Councillor Steve Evans, cabinet member for adult services, added: "This is a really good day for Wolverhampton, this is about us building our resources and working more effectively to deliver the outcome that matters most - and that is the people of Wolverhampton.

"This is a fantastic news story and comes from a good bit of working."

It was approved that the city council is the accountable organisation for the fund, which will be used to improve community and primary care, intermediate care, mental health and dementia.

Intermediate care, which is short-term care provided for people who no longer need to be in hospital but may need extra support to help them recover, will get the largest share of the fund, with around £39m dedicated to improvements in that area.

Community and primary care will receive around £18m, while £8m is put aside for mental health services will get £8m and £5m will be used for dementia services £5m.

However, decision-making will remain within the responsible bodies in each organisation and existing contacts between service providers and the two groups will not be affected.

The health and wellbeing board will continue to oversee both organisations performance against objectives set out in the Better Care Fund plan.

These include making 3.5 per cent reduction on total emergency admissions.

Failure to meet this target would result in £1.6m of CCG funds, which would have been put into the pool being used to pay for the cost of emergency activity.

Another £3m will be put aside by the council to cover demographic growth and new costs associated with the implementation of the fund.