Sir Nicholas Soames: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress has been made on improving the social care interface between the NHS and local authorities.

Caroline Dinenage, Minister of State for Care: We know that people need health, social care and other public services to work seamlessly together to deliver better quality care. That is why in 2013 we announced the Better Care Fund (BCF), implemented from 2015, which allows local authorities and clinical commissioning groups to pool budgets for the purposes of integrated care. The Fund has incentivised collaborative working in local areas, helping people to live independently in their communities for as long as possible. In 2016/17 85% of areas agreed or strongly agreed that the delivery of their BCF plan had a positive impact on integration locally.

The Government has already taken significant action to help reduce delayed transfers of care (DToC), including providing an additional £2 billion of funding for social care, setting expectations locally for reductions in DToC and asking the Care Quality Commission to undertake a series of local system reviews to evaluate the boundary between health and social care’s functionality, the findings of which have recently been published. Since February last year, more than 1,600 beds per day have been freed up nationally by reducing National Health Service and social care delays.

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