By Vivienne Russell | 13 May 2014
CIPFA has joined forces with the Healthcare Financial Managers Association and the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services to discuss what their members can do to progress the integration of health and social care.
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The three bodies met for the first time in March and now plan to hold a regular forum for discussion and debate. They want to explore opportunities for networking to bring health and social care finance practitioners together to share best practice, raise awareness across the sectors about funding flows and service delivery, and identify areas where further academic research could help aid understanding of the impact of integration.
Discussions are being held in the context of the forthcoming £3.8bn Better Care Fund, which starts in 2015/16 and is intended to put significant resources behind the integration agenda by taking money from NHS budgets and transferring them to social care. However, this in turn will put pressure on an already stretched health service, while local government is also having to manage steep budget cuts.
CIPFA chief executive Rob Whiteman said: ‘CIPFA is committed to exercising every lever it can to ensure that the public sector is fully equipped for this task which is why it is encouraging to be working alongside bodies such as HFMA and Adass.
‘Through working together we hope that we can support the sector in understanding the structures, funding arrangements and pressures we all face so that we can collectively deliver the world class service that patients and the taxpayer deserves.’
HFMA chief executive Mark Knight said health and care integration demanded much greater mutual understanding between sector.
‘We also need to explore how different delivery models will impact on costs and quality,’ he said.
‘We are very much looking forward to our regular “health and social care conversations” with CIPFA and Adass and are confident it will add real value and support the delivery of the integration agenda.’
At Adass, president David Pearson said the three-way initiative was a vital one, especially given the current climate of austerity.
‘CIPFA and HFMA’s financial acumen, coupled with Adass’s daily commitment to both social care and health services and getting value for money as need increases will help fashion an important partnership to help improve our financial performance on behalf of the people we serve,’ he said.
