On October 2nd the Department of Health and Social Care announced that £240m of additional funding would be provided for councils to spend on adult social care services to help ease pressures on the NHS this winter. Of this, £2,717,108 has been allocated for Northamptonshire.
This funding is aimed at getting patients home quicker and freeing up hospital beds across England over the winter months. It is intended to enable further reductions in the number of patients that are medically ready to leave hospital but are delayed because they are waiting for adult social care services.
This funding will ease pressure on the health system and follows the announcement of £145 million to improve emergency care within the NHS this winter.
It also aims to improve weekend discharge arrangements and speed up the process of assessing what social care is needed for patients in hospitals. The money will pay for home care packages to help patients get out of hospital quicker, reablement packages to help patients carry out everyday tasks and regain mobility and confidence, and home adaptations.
This will give our council a significant boost to help prevent people from going into hospital unnecessarily and getting them home as soon as they are ready this winter.