By David Williams
29 October 2009
Health and social care services are suffering because councils and NHS bodies are failing to pool resources effectively, the local government watchdog has said.
The Audit Commission claimed authorities were more concerned with the technicalities of collaborating and ‘intangible benefits such as better partnership working and improved mutual understanding’.
Means to an end: joint financing across health and social care, published on October 29, suggested that few authorities could give concrete evidence that services were better or easier to access as a result of joint funding.
The commission also found that authorities were struggling to establish partnerships. Pooled funding accounted for just 3.4% of the £100bn total spent on health and social care in 2007/08. Much of that sum was spent on learning disability services, mental health services and equipment to enable elderly people to live independently.
Audit Commission chair Michael O’Higgins argued: ‘Councils and their health care partners must agree what they want to achieve through joint funding. Joint funding should not be happening just for the sake of it… councils and the NHS can also achieve better value for money this way, which should be an added incentive with the financial squeeze ahead.’
The watchdog also called on the Department of Health to identify a set of performance indicators for authorities to measure themselves against.
David Stout, PCT network director at the NHS Confederation, told Public Finance. ‘I would focus not on measures of integration but on measures of outcome, and then hold bodies to account for what they’re doing, and give them the freedom to decide whether the best way to achieve that or not is through integration.’
But Richard Humphreys, senior fellow for social care at the King’s Fund, said the report made ‘eminent sense’. ‘People’s needs are not easily divisible into health and social care, for example people with long-term conditions, mental health needs, learning disability,’ he said.
Humphreys argued that pooling resources would not automatically improve services, and that authorities must first pool their knowledge of an area’s needs. ‘Sometimes councils and PCTs plunge into the mechanics of joint financing without really working out what they want to achieve for their whole population,’ he said.
29 October 2009
Health and social care services are suffering because councils and NHS bodies are failing to pool resources effectively, the local government watchdog has said.
The Audit Commission claimed authorities were more concerned with the technicalities of collaborating and ‘intangible benefits such as better partnership working and improved mutual understanding’.
Means to an end: joint financing across health and social care, published on October 29, suggested that few authorities could give concrete evidence that services were better or easier to access as a result of joint funding.
The commission also found that authorities were struggling to establish partnerships. Pooled funding accounted for just 3.4% of the £100bn total spent on health and social care in 2007/08. Much of that sum was spent on learning disability services, mental health services and equipment to enable elderly people to live independently.
Audit Commission chair Michael O’Higgins argued: ‘Councils and their health care partners must agree what they want to achieve through joint funding. Joint funding should not be happening just for the sake of it… councils and the NHS can also achieve better value for money this way, which should be an added incentive with the financial squeeze ahead.’
The watchdog also called on the Department of Health to identify a set of performance indicators for authorities to measure themselves against.
David Stout, PCT network director at the NHS Confederation, told Public Finance. ‘I would focus not on measures of integration but on measures of outcome, and then hold bodies to account for what they’re doing, and give them the freedom to decide whether the best way to achieve that or not is through integration.’
But Richard Humphreys, senior fellow for social care at the King’s Fund, said the report made ‘eminent sense’. ‘People’s needs are not easily divisible into health and social care, for example people with long-term conditions, mental health needs, learning disability,’ he said.
Humphreys argued that pooling resources would not automatically improve services, and that authorities must first pool their knowledge of an area’s needs. ‘Sometimes councils and PCTs plunge into the mechanics of joint financing without really working out what they want to achieve for their whole population,’ he said.
