Care Minister confirms government's continued commitment to Better Care Fund

Norman Lamb (announced in a statement last week) revealed that the government's flagship programme is the likely mechanism to fully integrate health and care spending across the country. He has set 2018 as the target date to pool all health and care spending and believes that a national reorganisation will not be necessary to achieve this objective.

The Department of Health is currently reviewing submissions for the first year of BCF integration, with a minimum of £3.8bn set to be pooled from next April. Lamb has indicated that he expects the amount to be "significantly bigger".

The Care Minister has said that he anticipates that different models of integration will emerge for example clinical commissioning groups with local authority representation.

"We must also make sure that we don't simply put budgets or organisations together without changing the models of care they provide, so performance targets and rules should be minimised in favour of encouraging innovative practice".

TLAP has produced the Narrative for Person Centred Care with National Voices in 2013 which is a series of 'I Statements' which people who use services have produced to express what good integrated and coordinated care looks like from their perspective. It has been widely adopted across the sector and is referenced in Better Care Fund Guidance. In August we produced No Assumptions - A Narrative for personalised, coordinated care and support in mental health. It is a resource to help NHS, council commissioners and providers of services organise person-centred care based on what people with live experience of mental illness say is important to them.