Appendix 1

National Joint Forward Plan Guidance Key Points Summary

The national Guidance for developing a five year Joint Forward Plan (JFP) was published in December can be found here.  This sets out the key requirements and areas of flexibility for ICBs and their partner Trusts to bring together a first JFP before the start of the 2023/24 financial year. Brief key points are as follows:

· Legal responsibility for the JFP lies with the ICB and its partner Trusts.  Systems are encouraged to use the JFP to develop a shared delivery plan for the Integrated Care Strategy and the local joint Health and Wellbeing Board Strategy “that is supported by the whole system, including local authorities and voluntary, community and social enterprise partners”;

· As a minimum, the JFP should describe how the ICB and its partner trusts intend to arrange and/or provide NHS services to meet their population’s physical and mental health needs.  This should include the delivery of universal NHS commitments (as described in the annual NHS priorities and operational planning guidance - also issued on 23 December) and NHS Long Term Plan, address the four core purposes of ICSs and meet legal requirements;

· ICBs and their partner trusts will continue to separately submit specific operational and financial information as part of the nationally coordinated NHS planning process, with alignment between NHS planning submissions and the public-facing JFP;

· At a Sussex level the ICS System Leadership Forum will take forward discussions about what the delivery plan process and content will look like.  A session is planned for 27 February to explore that, having been rescheduled from the 19 January due to the industrial action by the Nursing workforce. In Sussex it has been agreed to call the JFP the ‘Sussex Shared Delivery Plan’ (SDP).

· The key nationally prescribed dates are: a first draft JFP to be produced by 31 March 2023 covering year 1 (2023/24), and a final plan for publication and sharing by 30 June 2023, covering the remaining years 2 – 5.

· A key stage in the JFP development process is the statutory role of HWBs; Boards are to be consulted for their opinion on whether the JFP takes proper account of their HWB Strategy, and a statement about this from HWBs is to be included in the final draft plan that is submitted at the end of June.