Summary of Integration Joint Board meeting: June 2024

Falkirk’s Integration Joint Board, responsible for the strategic planning and operational oversight of local health and social care services, met on 28 June 2024. Here’s a summary of what member’s discussed:

Chief Officer Report

Presented at each board meeting, the Chief Officer report provides an overview of local and national developments across health and social care. This report updated members on the latest information about the development of the National Care Service and the Independent Review of Inspection, Scrutiny and Regulation of Social Care Support in Scotland. Members also received an overview of the new Chief Officer’s priorities and heard about improvement work within the GP Out of Hours service and the development of “Your Home First” – a whole system approach supports people to receive care in the most appropriate place.

Annual Reports

A draft 2023 – 2024 annual report for Falkirk Health and Social Care Partnership and an annual return to the Scottish Government from Falkirk Alcohol and Drug Partnership were presented. The Partnership is awaiting national and local performance data to be collated and published by Public Health Scotland. Once this is available in July, the Partnership will publish its full Annual Performance Report, alongside a summary video.

Financial updates

The Chief Finance Officer  gave members a summary of the current 2024/25 financial position, outlining the annual budget of over £298 million – comprised of the £41.9m ‘set aside’ and £256.5m ‘integrated’ budgets. The update highlighted the challenges to the IJB budget, with savings of £18.429m agreed for this financial year across integrated and set aside services. Savings plans will be monitored and reported to the IJB throughout the financial year and work is ongoing to deliver longer term sustainable solutions.

Alongside the main Financial Report, the Chief Finance Officer also presented a Draft Financial Outturn report which compares actual expenditure to the approved budget for the 2023/24 year. A final overspend of £2.606m was noted for 2023/24 financial year.  The final reserves for the 2023/24 year is expected to be £21.2m – a decrease of £7.5m in the year. This final position is still to be audited.  As set out in previous reports and meetings, the Partnership will continue its work to implement its current savings plan to reduce regular use of reserve funding.

Proposed integration of Justice Services and Children’s Social Work Services

The Board received an update from the Integration Programme Board for Children’s Social Work Services and Justice Services, which has been gathering feedback on proposals to integrate both services into the Partnership. A series of staff sessions were held earlier this year, which informed the draft recommendations presented to IJB and Falkirk Council this week. The programme board will now progress wider community consultation, with a final decision about the integration of services to be taken at Falkirk Council’s December meeting. Further information about this work can be found on the Partnership’s news pages.

Forth Valley Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategic Plan

The Board has agreed that a new Forth Valley-wide plan for Mental Health and Wellbeing Support will be progressed in collaboration with Clackmannanshire and Stirling Integration Joint Board. A strategic planning group for Mental Health & Wellbeing will be formed with broad stakeholder representation from across Clackmannanshire & Stirling HSCP, Falkirk HSCP and NHS Forth Valley.

The proposed plan will take a life course approach and will include child & adolescent, adult and older adult mental health. With a central focus on improving population health and prevention, as well as on support and services for people with complex and enduring mental illness, the plan will reflect the values of national and local strategies. The first step will be to conduct a detailed analysis of current provision in Forth Valley, to be completed between July and September 2024. Stakeholder engagement is expected between October and November, with a draft plan presented for consultation and initial approval by the end of December 2024. Further engagement and amendments will be made prior to final approval by both local Integration Joint Boards in March 2025.

Communication and Engagement Strategies

A set of strategic documents covering the Partnership’s approach to communication, participation, and engagement activities were approved by the Board. The Communication Strategy and Participation and Engagement Strategy have been refreshed for the next three-year period, and a new joint action plan produced to oversee the implementation. The full strategies and action plan can be found on the Partnership’s publications page. The action plan contains 38 commitments, including steps to:

• Improve support for people volunteering and sharing lived-experience insight with the Partnership’s Boards and strategic groups.
• Improve understanding and transparency of the Partnership’s decision-making processes.
• Increase the accessibility and inclusivity of the Partnership’s communication materials.
• Build better understanding and easier access to services through improved signposting to services.
• Celebrate the success of staff and supporting the recruitment and retention of our workforce.

IJB and professional advisor membership

Following the appointment of the Partnership’s new Chief Officer in April, a new temporary Head of Integration, and a new Chief Finance Officer, the Board formally welcomed new members and professional advisors at this month’s meeting. A full list of members and advisors can be found on the Board web pages.

Recurring items

In addition to topical and thematic reports, the Board received usual updates covering:

• Agenda item 13: Summary of recent performance data
• Agenda item 14: Summary of quarterly communications activity

Watch the discussion

All Integration Joint Board meetings are livestreamed on Falkirk Council’s Committee Meetings YouTube channel. A recording is available to watch shortly after. A copy of all Board reports can be found on the Falkirk Council committee webpages.