Health and wellbeing boards (HWBs) need to be more ambitious and the government and health care system needs to support them, a joint NHS Clinical Commissioners (NHSCC) and Local Government Authority (LGA) report released today said.
Health and wellbeing boards (HWBs) need to be more ambitious and the government and health care system needs to support them, a joint NHS Clinical Commissioners (NHSCC) and Local Government Authority (LGA) report released today said.
Making it better togethercalls for action from health and wellbeing board (HWB) members and the government to significantly ramp-up their scale of ambition so HWBs can take on effective system leadership.
The report calls for a national five-year funding settlement across health and care, and a review of the tariff system. It suggests the development of a new payment system that looks across entire care pathways and incentivises a preventative approach, aligned finances and budget timetables between the NHS and local government, and longer-term funding settlements to enable long-term joint planning.
Dr Steve Kell, co-chair of NHSCC, said: “NHSCC and the LGA have come together to develop this report to remind everyone that the strength of HWBs is that they combine different roles, legitimacies, experience and strengths, and have the potential to create a whole greater than the sum of their parts.
“Our members have consistently told us that they need space and stability to develop existing local structures – avoiding any change to current legislation – and to allow them the space to let the relationships with partners grow into strong local system leadership with a focus on better outcomes for our patients and local populations,” he said.
The report also calls for an integrated, proportionate place-based commissioning framework which supports local accountability. It suggests integrated, proportionate inspection, regulation, assurance and reporting systems which incentivise collaboration and integration and align accountability for commissioning across CCGs and councils.
It advocates a single national outcomes framework for health, public health and social care with a limited number of key national outcomes for the whole system which will enable HWBs to determine their priorities locally, and a review and reform of the legal framework for information governance and data sharing with appropriate safeguards for privacy and consent.
"Health and wellbeing boards are the best way of ensuring the two sectors can work together as equal partners on a place-based preventative approach to commissioning health and care services, and securing the best outcomes for our communities,” added Kell.
