Government cash boost to transform care services

THE SCOTTISH Government is investing £1.84 million in Argyll and Bute to ‘ transform health and social care services’, writes Sandy Neil.

The Integrated Care Fund (ICF) is a three-year source of funding from 2015 to 2018 to help health and social care partnerships ( HSCP) support investment in integrated services.

Its key purpose is to ‘act as a catalyst for transforming health and social care services through focusing on anticipation, prevention and early intervention, and maintaining people’s health and well being’, an HSCP spokesperson explained.

Argyll and Bute HSCP has received £1.84 million in the first year and of this £1.04 million was directed towards building on health and social care services across the region.

This year’s funding, the spokesperson added, will support a range of work such as ‘management and prevention of falls – preventing people ending up in hospital; self management – assisting and empowering patients to manage their condition; reablement – helping people to regain the ability to look after themselves; an integrated equipment store/care and repair team – enhancing the scale and range of equipment and response time to support people in their own homes and allow safe discharge from hospital’.

The remaining £ 800,000 was also devolved directly to local communities across Argyll and Bute.

Oban, Lorn and the Isles received £182,348, Mid Argyll, Kintyre and Islay £ 200,754, Helensburgh and Lomond £196,066 and Bute and Cowal £ 220,832.

Locality planning groups were established to govern and account for the delivery of the HSCP’s strategic plan at a local level, the spokesperson said.

Its review, which was based on need, priority and evidence, agreed that a number of existing local projects would be continuing into 2016/17 and also led to £ 410,000 being available across the HSCP for new initiatives.

At the beginning of September 2016, the HSCP invited applications from across the third sector, independent sector and the HSCP to apply for this locality funding, and 28 applications were received totalling nearly £ 731,800.

The successful applicants for 2016-17 in Oban, Lorn and the Isles are Oban Link Club, Oban Youth Café, Hospital Outreach Preventative Support, Coll Healthy Options, Island Based Carer Support Services, Lorn Healthy Options, Lorn Medical Centre, and Appin Community Transport Scheme. Successful within Mid Argyll, Kintyre and Islay are Islay and Jura Health and Care Hub and Kintyre Befriending.