Mike O’Regan, Central and Eastern Cheshire Primary Care Trust (CECPCT), briefed the Committee on proposed action in response to funding shortfalls within the PCT.

He explained that the PCT commissioned the majority of mental health services from Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (CWP). A shortfall of £1.4 million had arisen in the budget for CWP services as a result of changes to funding for Improving Access to Psychological Services (IAPT) announced by the Department of Health in spring 2010. The funding for IAPT was to end in April 2010 rather than October 2011; funding for IAPT services would now have to be found from within existing budgets from April 2010. In 2010 – 2011 this shortfall would be met through a combination of one-off savings, one-off funding rebates and service redesign within IAPT services. From 2011, the shortfall would have to be met through recurrent savings within CWP services; in order to identify sufficient savings, CWP had agreed to apply a prioritisation process to all services and functions commissioned by the PCT. Mike O’Regan, explained that a prioritisation process had already been developed by the PCT Board and used previously with other services commissioned by the PCT.

A Project Board for the prioritisation process had been established which was shortly to include two service users. All services and functions currently provided by CWP were scored against a set of criteria including evidence of effectiveness, number of clients and quality of service; and an impact assessment undertaken. Each service would then be categorised as follows:

·  Decommission;

·  Decommission but absorb activity into other service or provider;

·  Full service review;

·  No change but set targets for the service etc.

The next steps would depend on which category each service fell into; it was anticipated that any services that fell into the decommission category would require consultation and engagement plans and the timescales for the service to be decommissioned would need to reflect this level of consultation required.

Members queried why the issue was only just being reported to the Committee when the PCT had been made aware of the cut in IAPT funding a few months earlier. In response, the Committee was advised that the PCT had been in discussion and negotiation with CWP to agree a plan to address this shortfall since being made aware of the issue. It was also explained that the impact was greater on CECPCT because they were part of an IAPT pilot and had received extra funding which meant they had commissioned additional work from CWP and appointed additional staff to deliver IAPT. In comparison, NHS Wirral, which was not a pilot area, had only received a relatively small amount of top-up funding. Further details would also be submitted to the Cheshire East Health and Adult Social Care Scrutiny Committee.

Resolved – That,

(a) the funding for mental health services in Central and Eastern Cheshire PCT and the prioritisation process to be introduced, be noted; and

(b) any further information be reported to the next meeting of the Committee.