The Director of Adult Social Care and Health Integration provided
Members with an update regarding the integration of Health and Social Care; the
following points were made:
- Sam Allen had recently taken up the post
of Chief Executive of the Integrated Care Board (ICB) for the North East
and North Cumbria Integrated Care System (ICS). Meetings between the Chief Executive and
Local Authority Directors would be taking place over the coming weeks.
- The NHS was amending the way it carried
out its internal governance; the intention was for the ICS to be
implemented in April 2022, but had been delayed to July 2022. At present, discussion was taking place
with Chief Executives across the region in relation to the operating model
for the ICS. The ICS was concerned
with the structure of the NHS, though there was a role for Local
Authorities to have representation on the associated Board. Beneath that, a further structure would
be established to consider matters at local level. The operating model for the ICB was
currently under discussion; Tees Valley Chief Executives would next be
meeting on 16 March 2022 to feed their collective opinions regarding this
back to the NHS.
- It was felt that the current working
relationship that the Local Authority had with the NHS / Clinical Commissioning
Group (CCG) was as strong as it had ever been. It was envisaged that the majority of
the current Directors and representatives of the CCG would continue to
liaise with the Local Authority once the ICS had formally been established,
as there was a requirement of the NHS to retain local structures and
linkages.
- Due to Middlesbrough’s health
demographics, it was felt that the ICS provided opportunity for longer
term preventative work to be looked at.
During the discussion that followed, Members asked a number of queries
of the Director. In response, the
following information was provided:
- A Member commented that they felt
reassured by the information provided, particularly as they had previously
held concerns around the alteration of the local structure in relation to
the size of the area that the new ICS would cover. In response, the Director indicated that
there would be structural changes.
The ICB, which was a Board of the NHS, covered the large
geographical area; to ensure that local areas could ‘feed in’, there would
be an Integrated Care Partnership (ICP), which was currently being
discussed by the Chief Executives.
The ICP would bring together local statutory and voluntary partners
to arrive at collective agreement around what was appropriate for the
respective local area. It was
explained that the ICS guidance had been produced with an expectation that
there would be one ICP for the whole geographical area. However, as the largest ICS in England,
this would not have been practical and therefore, four ICPs were currently
being created (Middlesbrough would belong to the Tees ICP, which was
likely to involve the five Local Authorities). It was felt that this approach would
grant opportunity for Middlesbrough to act as an individual Local
Authority where choosing to do so, but would also provide a forum where
the five Local Authorities could come together to provide a strengthened
voice for collective matters.
- With regards to the statutory guidance
for delivering the frameworks, it was explained that there was statutory
guidance associated with the establishment of the ICB. The Chair for the local area had
consistently aimed to maintain as much flexibility for individual local
areas as possible, essentially because it reflected the statutory guidance
and was practical to do so.
Reference was made to the scale and diversity of the ICS area,
which covered Redcar to Cumbria, and the need to successfully represent
the varying needs of those different localities within it. There was more flexibility around the
establishment of the local ICPs than there was the ICB, primarily because
the Board was part of the NHS structure and would therefore be replicated
across England.
The Chair thanked the Director for the information presented.
NOTED
