Agenda item

5.1.        The Board considered a report providing an update on progress with planning for 2021/22 and the preparation for the implementation of NHS White Paper ‘Integration and Innovation - working together to improve health and social care for all’.

5.2.        The Board asked whether there will be more resources for GP practices to help them integrate with community health and social care services.

5.3.        Ashley Scarff, Deputy Executive Managing Director – East Sussex Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), said the funding for primary care is ringfenced and this helps to ensure it is targeted to meet the needs of primary care services, including GP practices. The East Sussex Health and Social Care Partnership’s (ESHSCP) strategy includes moving towards earlier medical interventions in primary care settings to help improve outcomes, which means funding for GP practices and Primary Care Networks (PCNs) will remain a priority. Dr David Warden, Chair of the CCG, said that all CCGs will be abolished next April 2022 and the commissioning functions will move to the new Integrated Care Systems (ICS). This means GPs will no longer control the spending for healthcare locally, however, PCNs will in future be the voice of GPs locally and the mechanism for GPs to develop closer working relationships with the rest of the healthcare sector.  Vicky Smith, Programme Director - East Sussex Health and Social Care Transformation, said the transition from CCGs to ICS will cause disruption and involves significant work, but there is a general feeling that East Sussex health and care sector is in a good place to make the change and benefit from it.

5.4.        The Board asked how the roles of the ESHSCP and HWB will change under the new legislation.

5.5.        Keith Hinkley, Executive Director of Adult Social Care and Health, said the ESHSCP Partnership Board will continue as before engaging with a wider range of partners, such as care home providers, and district and borough councils, to develop and deliver integrated care locally. The HWB will retain its role of overseeing the overall direction of the ESHSCP.

5.6.        The Board asked whether the ESHSCP’s priorities are quantifiable and whether there were any baseline measures that could enable the HWB to measure the progress of the ESHSCP. 

5.7.        Vicky Smith said the ESHSCP had been reviewing its outcomes framework following the agreement by the HWB of key outcomes at its March 2020 meeting, however, this was delayed due to the pandemic. The key outcomes related to population health, improved quality and experience of care, and sustainable transformation of services. The next step is to complete this piece of work and produce key indicators for these outcomes and begin reporting to the Board at future meetings whether they are being met.

5.8.        The Board asked whether there were sufficient resources to ensure the Strategic Development Framework could be delivered on time, especially given the amount of milestones that land in Q4 21/22, shortly before the objectives are due to be implemented.

5.9.        Vicky Smith said that developing Strategic Development Framework is a negotiated process between many different stakeholders who all have to be broadly in agreement. The later milestones will allow enough time for all the organisations involved to undertake detailed planning to agree a vision between themselves before producing final written documentation in Q4, such as detailed business cases. The system does have the capability to develop integrated services at pace, as evidenced by the community hubs that were developed during the COVID-19 outbreak between the NHS, East Sussex County Council, district and borough councils, and Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector.

5.10.     The Board RESOLVED to:

1) Note the key agreements reached to date to support our continued collaboration and implementation of the White Paper; and

2) Note the progress with our planning activity focussing on our partnership work and shared plans aimed at improving population health and delivering more integrated care.