Telford Better Care health fund set for £600,000 overspend
A health and wellbeing programme in Telford which aims to take pressure off hospitals and social care services is expected to overspend by £600,000 this year, a report says.
The Telford and Wrekin Better Care Fund has a budget of nearly £24 million and is jointly led by Telford and Wrekin Council (TWC) and the NHS Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG).
A report for the borough’s Health and Wellbeing board says the 2.5 per cent overspend was caused by demand for care beds, but offset by underspends of £80,000 in other areas.
Better Care Funds were established by the government in 2013 and the Council and CCG have collaborated in Telford and Wrekin since 2017.
“This enables us to work towards a fully-integrated social care system, aiming to prevent admissions to an acute hospital, supports residents to live in the way they choose and reduces dependency on services,” the report authors write.
The two organisations have a pooled Better Care Fund budget of £23,767,912 for 2019-20.
The report states: “There is currently a projected overspend against budget of around £600,000, £680,000 arising from pressures in reablement services from demand for intermediate/enablement care beds, offset by underspends in other areas.
“The anticipated risk share would see the financial year end pressure met equally by the council and the CCG on a 50:50 basis, and consideration needs to be given to the ongoing demand management and continuation of risk sharing for reablement services into 2020-21.”
The report, co-authored by the council'c public health and procurement commissioning director Liz Noakes and CCG director of partnerships Fran Beck, will be discussed by the Telford and Wrekin Health and Wellbeing Board when it meets on Tuesday.
They add that a planning workshop, to agree the Better Care Fund’s 2020-21 priorities, will be held later that week.
