Better Care Fund Archive · Independent Living

The Better Care Fund – integrating health and social care

A flagship policy of the coalition government, the Better Care Fund arose from the 2013 spending review, as a mechanism for integrating health and social care more effectively, by providing a pooled budget drawn from NHS, local and central government resources.

It was established with two key objectives:

• reducing delayed transfers of care, where people remain in hospital longer than necessary for want of suitable arrangements in the community following discharge

• reducing the number of emergency hospital admissions, general and acute

Although the BCF has not achieved as much as was initially hoped in these areas (modest reduction in delayed transfers; no apparent effect on emergency admissions), what it has unarguably managed is to encourage organisations across health and social care to work together in their local area much more effectively.

This area of Independent Living carries news about the Better Care Fund. If you have any experiences of the functioning of the BCF in your locality or nationally, we’d like to hear from you! You can comment on any of the stories in this section, or email editor@independentliving.co.uk if you prefer.