Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from County Councillor M Tomlinson, County Councillor D Whipp, Dr S Karunanithi, Dr G Bangi, Dr M Ions, Dr D Wrigley, Mr R Jones, Professor H Tierney-Moore and Canon Wedgeworth.

Members of the Board are asked to consider any Pecuniary and Non-Pecuniary Interests they may have to disclose to the meeting in relation to matters under consideration on the Agenda.

There were no disclosures of interest in relation to items appearing on the agenda.

A report was presented in relation to the revised process for submitting the Better Care Fund Plan (BCF) for Lancashire and the changes that had been made to the content of the Plan that had previously been approved and submitted in April 2014.

In presenting the report the Chair acknowledged concerns regarding the process and the short notice in relation to the arrangements for the meeting and explained that there was a limited timescale in which to revise the BCF Plan and take it through the necessary governance processes in order for it to be submitted before the 19^th September 2014 deadline.

It was reported that the new guidance and templates represented a significant change from what had previously been approved. More detail was now required in a number of areas (as set out in the report) including how the activity shift away from acute activity would be delivered, clarification of financial benefits and in relation to risk sharing and contingency arrangements.

The revised guidance had also removed the "pay for performance" (PFP) link to the existing metrics and had linked PFP to a single metric based around reducing non-elective admissions to hospital.

It was recognised that the County Council, CCGs and Lancashire Commissioning Support Unit (CSU) had worked to produce the information for the revised submission and agree a target for the new metric with advice and support from NHS England. The revised submission would be similar to a  business plan and would enable partners to better articulate the changes and how they would be delivered with some elements of the submission being developed further in the future in the light of additional guidance.

With regard to the Section 75 agreement (which would address the question of the level of financial risk for which all parties would be jointly affected) it was noted that whilst the Agreement was referred to in the revised submission it would not be finalised before the deadline. As a result a report on the arrangements for the Section 75 agreement and governance was expected to be presented to the next meeting of the Board for consideration.

The meeting was informed that initial guidance had indicated an expectation that each Board would set a target of 3.5% reduction in non elective admissions. However, this position had subsequently changed as there had been an acknowledgement that local targets which differed from the 3.5% reduction may be acceptable if a strong local evidence based explanation was provided at the time of submission.

It was reported that the Lancashire submission was expected to contain a target that was less that 3.5% in line with the evidence of current performance and trend data in this area and aligned with the 5 year operation plans of the CCGs. Using the most recent data available the target in Lancashire was likely to be somewhere between 1.92% and 2.0%. Having considered this point the members of the Board agreed that the revised BCF submission for Lancashire should be made on the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

An item of Urgent Business may only be considered under this heading where, by reason of special circumstances to be recorded in the minutes, the Chair of the meeting is of the opinion that the item should be considered at the meeting as a matter of urgency.  Wherever possible, the Chief Executive should be given advance warning of any Members' intention to raise a matter under this heading.

The Chair referred to recent news reports in relation to safeguarding issues in Rotherham and informed the meeting that he had asked the Lancashire Safeguarding Children Board to examine the issue in relation to the County. He also suggested that a presentation on safeguarding in Lancashire be presented to the next meeting of the Board.

Resolved: That a presentation in relation to safeguarding across Lancashire be presented to the next meeting of the Board.

The next scheduled meeting of the Board will be held at 2pm on the 16^th October 2014 in Cabinet Room 'C' – The Duke of Lancaster Room at County Hall, Preston.

It was noted that the next scheduled meeting of the Board would be held at 2.00pm on the 16^th October 2014 in Cabinet Room 'C' – the Duke of Lancashire Room at County Hall, Preston.