Greenwich Council has approved a £52 million plan to integrate health and social care services in the borough. The decision was made at a meeting of the Health and Wellbeing Board on Monday, June 30, 2025, where members formally agreed to the Greenwich Better Care Fund (BCF) plan and submission for 2025/26.
The Better Care Fund is a pooled fund intended to facilitate integrated working between health and social care services. The total funding envelope for the BCF in 2025/26 is £52,234,230. This represents an increase compared to the 2024/25 funding, with the Local Authority Better Care Grant rising by 3.93%, the NHS minimum contribution increasing by 1.7%, and the Disabled Facilities Grant seeing a 13.76% boost.
The funding is divided between:
- The Local Authority Better Care Grant £19,040,576
- NHS Minimum contribution £29,648,777
- The Disabled Facilities Grant £3,544,877
The Greenwich Better Care Fund (BCF) will fund a variety of projects and initiatives, including:
- Disabled Facilities Grants (DFG)
- CARTS Integrated health and social care
- Urgent Community Response - The Integrated Joint Emergency Team (JET)
- Dementia - Increasing local support to promote prevention and independence
- Falls/Frailty - Intervention and ongoing patient support
- Hospice funding
- Wheelchair and equipment services
- Integrated Community Equipment Service (ICES)
- Discharge to Assess (D2A) Care Support
- Integrated Commissioning Function
- Reablement
- Hospital Discharge Improvement
- Community Learning Disability Team (CLDT)
- Long-term social care services
- Double-handed care
- Digital Health & Care (ATEC)
- Domiciliary Care
- Neighborhood Resource Centres
- Extra Care
- Personalised Budgets
- Social Care Workforce Capacity
- Home to Discharge (HID) support
- Administration Costs
- Facilitating discharge from acute (step down capacity)
- Community of Practice (CAC T) Resource
- Bridging Back Home
- Continuing Healthcare (CHC) and complex discharges
- Homeless support
- Support for Carers
- Reduction of Incontinence Products
- Home Out of Hospital Care
- Primary Care Provision for D2A Beds
- Residential and Nursing Care
Local areas are required to agree how the spending plans will improve performance against BCF metrics. The three headline metrics are:
- Emergency admissions to hospital for people aged over 65 per 100,000 population
- Average length of discharge delay for all acute adult patients
- Long term admissions to residential care homes and nursing homes for people aged 65 and over per 100,000 population.
The specific targets for improvement in these metrics are detailed in Appendix B Greenwich BCF plan for 202526 including expenditure and metrics.
The Royal Greenwich Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2023-2028 sets out the shared ambition for the borough, describing how the strategic leaders for the health and social care system will work together with people who live, work or study in the Royal Borough of Greenwich over the next five years to create a happier, healthier place to live.
Five priority actions developed as part of this plan include:
- Support Greenwich residents to start well
- Support Greenwich residents to be well
- Support Greenwich residents to feel well
- Support Greenwich residents to stay well
- Support Greenwich residents to age well