Have you carried out a scrutiny review of local plans for integrating health and social care services?
Would you like the findings to inform a national study?
The National Audit Office is carrying out a study of progress towards integrating health and social care services. The study will examine the progress of the range of integration initiatives that currently exist, including the vanguards, pioneers, Sustainability and Transformation Plans and Better Care Fund. The NAO wants to highlight where and how integration of health and social care is working in some localities, what the Department of Health and its partners are doing to support local integration and to conclude on whether the Government is effectively putting in place the enablers for full integration by 2020.
The Centre for Governance and Scrutiny recognises the value of shared learning between national and local scrutiny – and this is a chance to influence a national study through sharing the lessons from local scrutiny. This national study aims to hold the Department of Health to account for implementing its integration policies. But a key part of this will be gaining an understanding about what is going on at the local level. The NAO is seeking evidence and insights from local scrutiny to help with this. Some of the key questions the NAO is asking are:
- What are local areas doing to integrate services? Are there any particular innovations that are working well?
- What barriers are local areas facing?
- What impact are the integration pilots and programmes (e.g. Better Care Fund, Sustainability and Transformation Plans, Integrated Personal Budgets, Pioneers, Vanguards) having locally?
- How effective are sector led improvement and knowledge sharing activities?
- What are the outcomes of any local evaluations or inquiries undertaken through council scrutiny?
To respond to this call for evidence and insight, please get in touch with:
James Beveridge – james.beveridge@nao.gsi.gov.uk or andy.whittingham@nao.gsi.gov.uk
They will be pleased to receive copies of scrutiny review reports, or summaries of your local situation based on the questions above by 30 September.
The NAO does not normally name individual organisations in reports, but should they propose to make any specific references to local bodies they will of course share this with them in time for them to provide comments before publication.
The link below provides a summary of the work from the NAO website:
https://www.nao.org.uk/work-in-progress/integrating-health-and-social-care/
The following links provide more information about the NAO value for money programme in general and also a summary of other recent and planned studies.
https://www.nao.org.uk/about-us/role-2/our-work/value-for-money-programme/what-is-a-value-for-money-study/
https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/The-NAOs-role-in-local-audit-2016.pdf
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