The Bromley Council Health and Wellbeing Board Information Briefing scheduled for 26 June 2025 included updates on the Better Care Fund and a Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment consultation. These briefings were to be debated only if a member of the committee requested a discussion at least 24 hours in advance.

Better Care Fund Performance Update

The board was scheduled to note the performance against Better Care Fund (BCF) metrics and the finance update for the period covering January to March 2025.

The report pack included commentary on the Better Care Fund, stating that:

Since 2015, the BCF has been a crucial funding stream in supporting people to live healthy, independent, and dignified lives, through joining up health, social care, and housing services seamlessly around the person.

The report also noted that the Improved Better Care Fund (iBCF) was added to the BCF from 2017-18, paid to the local authority as a direct grant for spending on adult social care.

The BCF policy framework for 2023-25 sets out the government's priorities, including improving discharge, reducing pressure on urgent and emergency care and social care, and supporting intermediate care¹. In Bromley, the BCF grant is ring fenced for pooling budgets and integrating services between the South East London Integrated Care Board (SELICB) and the London Borough of Bromley (LBB).

The report detailed Bromley's performance against BCF metrics:

• Avoidable admissions: The target was an indirectly standardised rate (ISR) of admissions per 100,000 population of 524. Bromley's actual performance was lower than projected, with 491 unplanned admissions.
• Falls: The target for emergency hospital admissions due to falls in people aged 65 and over was a directly age standardised rate of 2097.8 per 100,000. Bromley's activity was less than projected.
• Discharge to usual place of residence: The target was 93.5%. Actual activity was slightly below the projected percentage target, with an end-of-year figure of 93.14%.
• Residential Admissions: The target for long-term support needs of older people (age 65 and over) was 411. Bromley's actual activity was less than projected, with 409 residential admissions.

The report also provided updates on Bromley's progress on national conditions for the BCF, including:

• National Condition 1: Overall BCF plan and approach to integration.
• National Condition 2: Enabling people to stay well, safe, and independent at home for longer.
• National Condition 3: Providing the right care in the right place at the right time.

The report noted that all services are targeted at vulnerable adults, with a focus on preventing crises and unplanned hospital admissions, and enabling supported discharge from hospitals into the community.

The outturn position for the 2024/25 BCF plan, including Disabled Facilities Grant² (DFG) and the iBCF, showed a total underspend of £397,000 (£59,000 revenue and £338,000 capital), which will be carried forward into 2025/26.

Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment Consultation

The Health and Wellbeing Board was scheduled to be informed that the statutory 60-day consultation for the next iteration of the Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment (PNA) was in draft form and ready to begin. The PNA is a statement of the needs for pharmaceutical services that the HWB is required to publish every three years, according to The National Health Service (Pharmaceutical and Local Pharmaceutical Services) Regulations 2013. The next iteration must be published by the end of September 2025.

The PNA steering group had been meeting since September 2024, and their commissioned provider produced the draft PNA for 2025-2028. The draft was scheduled to be posted on the Bromley Consultations webpage. After the consultation period, a report outlining comments and the PNA steering group responses was to be included in the final PNA, which would then be presented to the HWB at the September meeting before its publication on 1 October 2025.