The Better Care Fund is a partnership between NHS England, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the Department of Health and Social Care and the Local Government Association.[1] Its pooled budget, initially £5.3 billion, was announced by the Cameron Government in the June 2013 Spending Round. It aims at "meeting the challenges of integrating health and social care in England in order to keep people healthy for longer".[2] Local councils are allowed to increase the local fund. The intention was to shift resources into social care and community services from the NHS budget in England and so save £1 billion a year by keeping patients out of hospital. The pooled budget includes the Disabled Facilities Grants.
Better Care Fund Plans are agreed by the 151 local Health and wellbeing boards and then reviewed by health and local government partners regionally before formal approval by NHS England.[3] Initial analysis of the first plans submitted showed that social care would benefit from the fund by about £2 billion. This was four times the amount projected for hospitals to save from reduced activity.[4]
From April 2017 the improved Better Care Fund, a local authority social care grant, was introduced and required to be pooled in the Better Care Fund. In 2019-20, the mandatory minimum allocated was £6.4 billion.[5] Local areas can make also voluntary additional contributions to local funds and in 2019-20, a national total of £9.2 billion of health and social care budgets were pooled.[6]