21 October 2005
The Local Government Association has called for health and care funding to be merged into single pots to help pay for joined-up services between primary care trusts and local authorities.
'Local Area Agreements could be used to put the non-acute elements of primary care… and social care commissioning funds into a single place,' David Rogers, chair of the LGA's community well-being board, told a joint LGA/Association of Directors of Social Services conference on October 19.
'Such an approach can really pull services together, taking us towards that long-desired ambition of an intelligent and efficient relationship between social care and health,' he added.
In her address to the conference, Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt said the principle of better collaboration between the NHS and local authorities lay behind the decision to bring out a joint health and social care white paper on 'care close to home', due out in November.
'People don't divide up their needs between health and social care,' she said. 'They don't care where their service comes from – whether it's the NHS or the council or the voluntary or independent sector. They just want it to work, to be delivered to the right place, and quickly.'
But social services leaders were disappointed that Hewitt held back from announcing a requirement on all PCTs and GPs to co-operate with local authorities. She said instead that the department was re-examining that proposal, and would publish final guidance in April 2006.
Rogers told Public Finance: 'The willingness to engage properly in partnerships is what we're looking for. There's different ways of achieving that. [Hewitt] said she still had an open mind on which organisations would have a duty placed on them, so I see that as a glass half full.'
But social services directors and councillors expressed their concerns that the restructuring of PCTs could undermine the creation of seamless services.
Most local authorities approve of moves to merge PCTs to become coterminous with local authority boundaries. However, in some cities, PCTs are merging to create 'super PCTs' spanning more than one council, which could make joint working more complicated.
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