Summary of Integration Joint Board meeting: October 2025

Falkirk’s Integration Joint Board, responsible for the strategic planning and operational oversight of local health and social care services, met on 31 October 2025. 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, regional, and national updates across health and social care. This report presented a range of updates, including:

• Falkirk’s Mobile Emergency Care Service has been shortlisted as a Scottish finalist in the 2025 Great British Care Awards.
• Grahamston House care home has been commended by the Care Inspectorate following an unannounced inspection. The team received ‘Very Good’ grade 5 results for all areas assessed, covering its quality of care, leadership, and environment.
• The annual report of the Integrated Children’s Services Plan was recently submitted to Scottish Government outlining its progress. The plan runs until 2026, with work now underway to prepare for the next iteration covering 2026 – 2029. This will be taken forward within the partnership Strategic Leadership Group and by community consultation.
• NHS Forth Valley has moved to Stage 2 of the NHS Scotland Support and Intervention Framework. The decision has been taken in recognition of further improvements in Governance, Leadership and Culture over the last year and means that the Board no longer requires direct formal support from the Scottish Government.
• The Partnership’s Prison Healthcare Lead, Leona Paget, has provided evidence at the Scottish Parliament’s Criminal Justice Committee as part of an expert panel contributing to the inquiry into harm caused by substance misuse in Scottish Prisons.

Financial Updates

The Chief Finance Officer presented an update to the 2026/27 Business Case and Medium-Term Financial Plan, and a Budget Monitoring Report for the current financial year.

The Budget Monitoring Report estimates the Partnership will overspend by £6.28m this financial year, but this can be managed if required by contingency reserves and contributions from Falkirk Council or NHS Forth Valley.

The Medium-Term Financial Plan is a rolling outlook of the Partnership’s financial position. This version of the plan extends the outlook from 3 to 5 years for the first time. The report demonstrates the recent progress made to achieve over £20m of savings and efficiency measures by 2028. Of this, there remains a £1.988m gap within 2026/27 which the Partnership’s Finance Oversight Group will soon identify potential solutions to meet.

Looking beyond 2028, we can now also see the Partnership should aim to reduce its annual expenditure by around £5m each year to balance its budget and deliver the services within the expected resources available.

Independent Advocacy Plan 2025 – 2029

The Board approved a new Independent Advocacy Plan, which outlines how the Partnership will promote and review the availability and quality of independent advocacy support in the local area. Advocacy services help people to speak up for their rights, needs and wishes. The plan covers advocacy work across the Forth Valley area, applying to Falkirk HSCP and Clackmannanshire and Stirling HSCP. The plan will be overseen by the Oversight, Management, and Evaluation Group for Advocacy (OMEGA), which will regularly report into Falkirk’s Adult Protection Committee.

IJB Governance Update

This governance update sets out the meeting dates for 2026 and approves a number of changes to membership on the Board and its Performance committee, including:

• Welcoming the appointments of Alison Japp as the new NHS nominated member and Amanda Winters as the new depute carer representative.
• The recruitment of a third sector representative and depute, following the end of the current representative’s three year term. CVS Falkirk will support this recruitment process.
• The appointment of third sector rep, Ian Dickson, and service user rep, David McNiven, as new non-voting members on the Performance, Audit, and Assurance Committee.

Meeting dates for 2026 have been added to the Integration Joint Board and Performance, Audit, and Assurance Committee webpages.

Principles and Governance of Hosted Service

The Board noted the principles of a governance approach to Forth Valley-wide services which are planned and delivered by one of the local Health and Social Care Partnerships. The new approach will be developed further to put in place formal arrangements for hosted services, offering oversight and assurance for all parties and a consistent approach to escalation and service planning.

These principles will apply to the following Forth-Valley wide services:

Hosted by Falkirk HSCP:

• Prison Healthcare Services
• Primary Care Services. This includes GP contract management; Out of Hours services; and Community pharmacy, optometry, and dental services via NHS Board contracting.

Hosted by Clacks and Stirling HSCP:

• Specialist Mental Health Services
• Learning Disability Services

🔗 Agenda item 11: Principles and Governance of Hosted Service

Assurance and Governance

In addition to topical and thematic reports, the Board received operational and monitoring updates including:

Further information

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.

The next meeting of the Integration Joint Board will be 05 December 2025. The Performance, Audit, and Assurance Committee will next meet on 21 November 2025.