Health and Social Care Secretary Steve Barclay set out his five key priorities ahead of winter in a speech to NHS Providers on 16 November, and gave more information about the keenly-awaited £500 million Adult Social Care Discharge Fund.
The five key priorities are:
- Supporting the workforce including through more staff for NHS 111 and 999
- Focusing on recovery plans across electives, urgent and emergency care
- Tackling the issue of delayed hospital discharge
- Improving access to primary care
- Ensuring a stronger future for health including maintaining momentum on the New Hospital Programme and investing in technology to improve patient outcomes.
On delayed hospital discharges, the Health and Social Care Secretary said the £500 million Adult Social Care Discharge Fund would be given to ICBs and local authorities to free up beds, with the first tranche provided by early December, and the second at the end of January.
Local areas will be allowed to determine how to speed up the discharge of patients out of hospital. This might be through purchasing supportive technology, through boosting domiciliary care capacity or funding physiotherapists or occupational therapists to support recovery at home.
The Health and Social Care Secretary is looking at the impact of how funding was used and using this data to inform future decisions on funding, including a more compelling evaluation capacity to help those discussion with the centre of government.
Tackling discharge spanned all health and care services and needed to be much more of a team effort, where everyone plays their part, and where decisions on where risk sits within a local system are best made by those closer to the issue.
Full speech: Health and Social Care Secretary: NHS Providers Conference
