Integration Transformation Fund: Robbing Peter to pay Paul?

Despite what my wife says and what my schoolteachers used to say, my natural state is not one of being a pain in the arse.

I’m at risk of seeming like this, though, when it comes to the integration in health and social care.

I say this for two reasons:

1. Last week, I blogged to note that integration in mental health hasn’t had the most positive effect on personalisation, and to ask how we can work to ensure the same doesn’t happen more generally
2. After reading the most recent announcement on the Integration Transformation Fund (see here – pdf) I’ve noticed that part of the Fund in 2015/16 will be made up of c£220m of Disabled Facilities Grant funding and £130m Carers’ Breaks funding.

We knew that the Integration Transformation Fund wasn’t going to be new money, and we knew Paul (aka integration of health and social care) needs the money. But Peter (aka disabled people in their inaccessible homes and carers) isn’t exactly rolling in it at the moment.

Just to prove my wife and schoolteachers wrong (always a strong motivation, that), let’s end on two positives:

1. Integration across health and social care is absolutely something to aim for, for all the reasons people highlight (including the money and the currently artificial divide between health and social care that affects people more than it affects budget lines)
2. Without a doubt the most successful integration will be done at the level of the individual, for example (but not only) bringing together Personal Budgets and Personal Health Budgets. As much as possible should therefore be done to enable this (but without, I’d suggest, nicking money from where there already isn’t very much!)

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