Penny Bason, Head of Joint Partnerships, Shropshire Council and NHS Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin & Laura Tyler, Assistant Director, Joint Commissioning, Shropshire Council and NHS Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin

The Board received the report of the Head of Joint Partnerships and the Assistant Director, Joint Commissioning – copy attached to the signed Minutes – which presented an overview of the ShIPP Board meetings held in February and March 2023 and included actions, for assurance purposes, along with details of the Better Care Fund planning process.

The Head of Joint Partnerships introduced the report and highlighted the salient points.  She explained that delegated authority was being sought for the Executive Director of People, Shropshire Council and the Director of Delivery and Transformation, ICB to sign off the 2022/23 End of Year return.

The Assistant Director, Joint Commissioning reported that they were currently reviewing the last year’s plan and that the next two-year plan needed quite a lot of changes and that there may be some other schemes that would fit better within the plan and those conversations were yet to be had.

A brief discussion ensued and the Interim Director of Strategy and Partnerships, SaTH, felt that some of the work that had been done by SaTH could be combined with the work that was currently being done in this area and he agreed to share it with the Assistant Director, Joint Commissioning. 

The Chief Executive SCHT agreed that it was the right time to review the Better Care Fund to ensure it was aligned to the priorities and focused on prevention and supporting population health and keeping people well and out of hospital but it was important that the ‘where’ and the ‘how’ that work was going to be done was known so it was open and transparent and could be signed off in the full knowledge that everybody was supportive and had inputted into it.  She went on to recognise the importance for both health and social care of the core services that were supported in terms of the funding around that and therefore needed to understand the implications of any changes and how those core services were contributing to the overall benefit in the system to ensure that it met the objectives of the Board and the overall ICS priorities.

In conclusion, the Executive Director for People reassured the Board that there was a system-wide working group across the system for the last six months with representatives from SCHT, SaTH, the ICB and the Local Authority just thinking about what that review needed to look like so there was a great understanding of the current Better Care Fund and what it was delivering but also an idea about what they wanted the next two years to deliver.  She asked all system partners to ensure that those people understood the timeliness now of getting the submission in and to please commit to the meetings that would be scheduled in order to work at pace as the dates were not changeable.  The Chair added that it was important to ensure that the right people were in those conversations.

RESOLVED:

1.     to recognise the work underway to address the key priorities of ShIPP, as well as the risks in the system, highlighted by the Board.

2.     to note the Better Care Fund (BCF) planning guidance and to delegate sign off of the BCF plan to the Executive Director of People, Shropshire Council, and the Executive Director, Integrated Care Board. The detailed plan to be presented to the July Health and Wellbeing Board for ratification, subject to ratification by the Chief Executives’.

3.     to delegate sign off for the 2022/23 End of Year return to the Executive Director of People, Shropshire Council, and Director of Delivery & Transformation, Integrated Care Board.