A London CCG is planning to pool its budget with the local councils’ in an effort to integrate commissioning services.
NHS Hackney and City CCG announced in its February board papers that it would be combining its budget with the local authority budget for adult social care and public health resources, including the Better Care Fund.
A London CCG is planning to pool its budget with the local councils’ in an effort to integrate commissioning services.
NHS Hackney and City CCG announced in its February board papers that it would be combining its budget with the local authority budget for adult social care and public health resources, including the Better Care Fund.
The CCG will be contributing £335m in total to the pooled budget, while the London Borough of Hackney will add £111m and the City of London Council will contribute £6m.
The board papers said all CCG funding will be included in the pooled budget ‘apart from corporate services and a number of services which have to be legally excluded and will sit in the aligned budget including primary care commissioning.’
An aligned budget is being set up to include budgets, which cannot legally be pooled ‘or budgets where partners are not yet ready to pool but want to work collectively to plan their use’.
Services that would be covered by the aligned budget include surgery, radiotherapy, abortions, endoscopies, laser treatments and emergency ambulance services.
The local governments will include their adult social care and public health commissioning, and some staffing resources, in the pooled budget.
The board papers added that funding for some children’s services would be pooled in 2018-19 after a formal decision-making process in 2017.
The CCG and local authority would not comment on decision while the discussions are still underway.
