£150m additional support funding for social care and £20m additional Disabled Facilities Grant funding
The Department of Health has announced that it is allocating a one-off additional £150m to Primary Care Trusts in England, for immediate transfer to local authorities for investment in social care services which also benefit the heath system. This recognises that, during the winter period, health services, and particularly hospitals, are experiencing significant pressure. We are therefore looking for this additional investment to enable local services to discharge patients from hospital more quickly and provide effective ongoing support for people in their own homes.
The money will be distributed to PCTs on the basis of the social care relative needs formula, and allocations are attached to this letter. They are in addition to the £648m non-recurrent funding allocated to PCTs earlier in 2011/12 to support social care services, and the funding for re-ablement services that is incorporated within recurrent PCT allocations. PCTs will need to transfer this additional £150m to local authorities to invest in social care services to benefit health, and to improve overall health gain. Transfers will need to be made via an agreement under Section 256 of the 2006 NHS Act.
This additional funding should be used to impact directly on the specific most revalent reasons for delayed transfers of care, which are attributable to adult social care in the local authority concerned.
Commissioners should prioritise the development of best-practice approaches that support integrated system change, which will have a longer term impact on delayed transfers of care beyond this financial year.
The Department collects monthly situation report data on acute and non-acute delayed transfers of care by NHS provider and local authority. We will use this information to monitor the impact of this additional investment, and expect that improvement should be seen in the relevant data, with a downward trend attributable to the category targeted.
There will already be services and process in place for re-ablement and other activities to improve arrangement for discharging people from hospital. The Operating Framework for the NHS in England 2011/12 set out that PCTs need to work closely with their local authority partners to develop local re-ablement capacity. The new Operating Framework for 2012/13 confirms that commissioners need not reimburse hospitals for admissions within 30 days of discharge following an elective admission, with locally agreed thresholds for other readmissions. The savings made will be invested in clinically driven initiatives to support improved outcomes through re-ablement and post-discharge support. In this context, the additional investment of £150m is to give extra impetus and focus on system change and development rather than merely stop-gap responses.
The Government has also announced that it is allocating an additional £20 million to the Disabled Facilities Grant for 2011/12, to help more people with a disability to access the aids and adaptations they require to live independently at home. Allocations will be confirmed shortly by the Department for Communities and Local Government. Where appropriate, we expect that Directors of Adult Social Services will work with Directors of Housing to ensure that this funding is used effectively.
As set out in the above, the Government has already allocated £648m this year to PCTs to transfer to local authorities for spending on social care services that also benefit the health system. Feedback from both PCTs and local authorities has been positive, with many areas stating that the funding transfer has stimulated greater co-operation and joint planning. This additional investment of £150m therefore represents an excellent opportunity to build on these joint working arrangements, with a particular focus on boosting social care capacity to reduce delayed transfers of care.