To approve the council’s contribution to the Herefordshire better care fund (BCF) and Integration plan 2019-20 and the section 75 agreement from 1 April 2020 to 31 March 2025. In summary, the report identifies the following key points:

·         The better care fund (BCF) provides a mechanism for joint health, housing and social care planning and commissioning. It brings together ring-fenced budgets from Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) allocations, and funding paid directly to local government, including the Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG), the improved Better Care Fund (iBCF) and the Winter Pressures grant;

·         The council’s contribution to the better care fund is £31.5m revenue and £2m capital for 2019/20;

·         It is a national requirement, set by NHS England, that the better care fund is transferred into one or more pooled funds established under section 75 of the NHS Act 2006; the four key national conditions and national metrics for the BCF remain consistent from 2018-19;

·         Herefordshire partners remain committed to working together to deliver a local system ‘where strong communities encourage individual citizens to live healthy lives and offer support when this is required for them to maintain their independence, with sustainable, aligned health and care services for local people’;

·         The council and CCG continue to work together to deliver on the key priorities within the plan to achieve service redesign and improve the delivery of service in order to achieve the priorities of the health and wellbeing strategy in the most cost effective way;

·         Herefordshire’s BCF and Integration plan 2019-20 details the local approach to integration, plans to achieve metrics and plans for ongoing implementation of the HICM for managing transfers of care. The plan maintains the key schemes identified in the 2017-18 submission; and

·         the plans are intended to move our health and social care system to a new service model in which patients get more options, better support and properly joined up care at the right time in the optimal care setting will support communities to remain within their own homes and reduce the need for hospitalisation and long-term care.