Summary of Integration Joint Board meeting: December 2025

Falkirk’s Integration Joint Board, responsible for the strategic planning and operational oversight of local health and social care services, met on 05 December 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 and the Forth Valley area are currently marking 16 days of Activism against Gender Based Violence, running until 10^th A range of events and activities are planned with the full programme available on Eventbrite.
• The Care Inspectorate has completed a test of its new inspection approach, which the Partnership’s Care at Home Service was selected to take part in earlier this year. Between April and September, the Inspectorate assessed how effective the Partnerships commissioning arrangements were in supporting good outcomes for people and carers. Across all seven quality areas assessed, the Partnership achieved a ‘Good’ rating.
• Teams from across the Partnership have been celebrating success in local, regional and national awards. This included the Mobile Emergency Care Service winning ‘Best Home Care Team’ at the Great British Care Awards; Falkirk Council and the Partnership’s success at the Scottish Housing Awards for the inclusive design of Japp Gardens; and three Forth Valley nominees (Children’s Speech and Language Therapy Team, HMP Stirling Prison Healthcare Team, and Community Learning Disability Nurse Charmaine Black scooping up awards at the Scotland Health Awards.
• An agreement by Falkirk Council and Clackmannanshire Council to begin work exploring potential collaboration arrangements. The initial areas to be explored include revenue and benefits, economic development, HR and payroll, procurement, regulatory services, support services linked to education and to social care.

The report also included recommendations to updates to the Board’s membership, including:

• The reappointment of Andrew Murray, Medical Director, Karen Goudie, Executive Nurse Director and David Herron, GP Clinical Lead as non-voting members for the 3-year period to December 2028.
• Appointing Alison Jaap to the Performance, Audit, and Assurance Committee as a voting member from NHS Forth Valley.

Financial Updates

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

The monitoring report outlines a projected overspend which will be met by the use of reserves and contributions from partner organisations (NHS Forth Valley and Falkirk Council). In the longer term, the business case and financial plan explains the Partnership requires to identify approximately £14m of transformation and efficiencies over the next 5 years  to reduce its annual expenditure to balance its budget and deliver the services within the expected resources available.

The process to identify immediate budget saving proposals and to set Falkirk’s annual health and social care budget for 2026/2027 has already begun, with further information on the Partnership’s news pages.

Housing with Care Motion Response

The Board received a response to a motion presented to the September Board meeting, which requested further information about the work underway within Housing with Care to change the provider(s) of care at Tygetshaugh Court. Further information about this work is available on the FAQ page. A summary of information requested by the motion includes:

• Options appraisal process: The report includes a copy of the options appraisal, which outlines the scoring for each option considered and identifies Tygetshaugh as the preferred choice. Tygetshaugh was selected because its model of care closely aligns with services available elsewhere and offers a less complex level of care compared to the other options.
• Expected savings to be achieved: Once implemented, changing the provider of care at Tygetshaugh is expected to deliver a recurring saving of £150,000 each year. As the Partnership has yet to conclude HR processes and implement this change, the current savings projection for this financial year is around £28,000.
• Transition arrangements: Following the transition to new care providers, a 6-week review period will ensure care arrangements continue to meet all assessed needs.
• Workforce support: Staff are being supported through the Council’s HR procedures, with the preference to offer alternative roles for colleagues choosing redeployment.

Locality planning update

The Board approved a draft locality plan for the West Falkirk locality area and received an update about the delivery of similar plans for Central and East localities. The plans have been developed to support the local development of services and implement the principles of the Scottish Government’s Localities Guidance.

The locality plans include four priority areas, identified through public and partner consultation:

• Making It Easier to Manage Your Health & Wellbeing
• Improved Access & Availability of Community-Based Support
• Supporting Recovery and Reducing Mental Health Harms
• Improved Partnership Working

The Central and East locality plans were approved earlier in 2025, and are also available on the Partnership’s publication pages.

Shifting the Balance of Care Evaluation

The Board received an overview of the Shifting the Balance of Care work programme, which began in summer to reduce pressure on Forth Valley Hospital by transferring people to appropriate places for their needs. This largely involved the provision of round the clock care at home, where needs were continually assessed to identify ongoing needs. This has helped people to get home as soon as possible.

You can read more about this project, and watch the video presented to Board, on our news pages.

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 30 January 2026. The Performance, Audit, and Assurance Committee will next meet on 16 January 2026.