The LGA is a national partner in the Better Care Fund team (BCF team), alongside the Department of Health and Social Care, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and NHS England and Improvement, charged with delivering the BCF at a national level.
The Better Care support offer is delivered through a range of national and regional streams.
Better Care Fund bespoke support programme
The LGA has been commissioned to provide the BCF Bespoke Support Programme. The purpose of the programme is to provide on-site, bespoke support which local areas can draw on when they require additional or specialist capacity or expertise in developing or implementing their BCF plan.
Local areas will be able to draw on the Better Care Advisers (BCAs) to provide hands-on support when preparing and implementing their BCF plan, as well as supporting wider Government expectations and ambitions for integration. These BCAs are of significant seniority and have obtained a wealth of experience and expertise working across health and social care systems. They are experienced leaders of change and hold a track record of delivering integrated care.
The Better Care Fund team (BCF team) has expanded its programme of support to systems in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Building on our ongoing offer of bespoke support, the BCF team is working with the LGA to provide a range of opportunities for systems to identify and continue the good practice which came about in response to the pandemic, while targeting support in areas which have been experiencing challenges or wish to accelerate their BCF and integration ambitions.
Bespoke support options range from whole system, in-depth enquiries to feed into strategy-making moving forward, to more personal support for individuals in the sector. Support is delivered at no cost to local systems by the LGA working with our partners within the BCF and using a pool of peers and consultants with live experience and expertise.
Winter planning and discharge policy support
The LGA, with the Better Care Fund Team and the Emergency Care Improvement Support Team have developed a joint offer to support councils and NHS partners prepare and deliver winter plans. Winter preparedness including discharge to assess implementation gives more detail. The offer includes facilitated gap analysis to implement the hospital discharge policy.
Local areas can also draw on the wide range of integration support provided by the LGA and partners, such as peer reviews, facilitated workshops on the building blocks of integration or bespoke support:
Local areas can also draw on multi-disciplinary consultancy support. This is a flexible support resource working either in conjunction with the Better Care Advisers or independently, with the aim of sharing learning from all strands of support. The consultancy support offer will focus on:
- project and programme management
- analytical expertise
- technical support
- case study development.
Support is requested through the locality Better Care Manager (BCM), as the BCF team local relationship manager.
If you have any questions please contact: [email protected]
