In Bolton our work is informed by our Locality Plan, a focus for understanding local priorities and bringing together local health and social care services to meet them more effectively. A key benefit of bringing together Health and Social Care is to reduce duplication and streamline Commissioning processes for Providers. One way in which this is happening is through the creation of joint contracts.
Care Home contracts have been chosen as the first commissioning area to benefit from a joint contracting arrangement. This is because of the strong overlap between the CCG and Council on the commissioning of care home placements. This approach will be rolled out to other services in the future. We also have strong joint working in place being delivered through our Care Home Excellence scheme.
The new contract has been developed by combining the NHS Standard Contract and the Council’s previous Framework Agreement for Care Homes.
The NHS Standard Contract
Where Health and Council organisations are developing joint contracts the chosen approach is that both organisations adopt the NHS Standard Contract. The NHS Standard Contract is used by all clinical commissioning groups in their contracts with health and care organisations, other than for other than primary care. They are legally obliged to use this form of contract. The Council has less restriction on its contracting procedures therefore it is able to adopt the NHS Standard Contract; this is the only viable way in which a joint contract can be adopted. We are using the “Shorter Form” version of the NHS Standard Contract; the contracts are updated on an annual basis by NHS England https://www.england.nhs.uk/nhs-standard-contract/17-19-updated/.
The contract is split into three parts:
- General Conditions
- Service Conditions
- The Particulars
They set out local details of the Commissioning organisations. One of the key documents, which may be most of interest to you, in the Particulars is the Specification.
The Particulars is divided into Schedules:
- Schedule 1 – Service Commencement and Contract Term,
- Schedule 2 – The Services, the Specification is with this section, also included are local agreements, policies and procedures
- Schedule 3 – Payment
- Schedule 4 – Quality Requirements,
- Schedule 5 – is omitted
- Schedule 6 – Contract management, reporting and information requirements.
Contract for care homes located outside of Bolton
The Council uses a different care home contract for care homes located outside of the borough, it shares many of the features of the "in borough" contract but with some of the local reporting requirements removed. NHS Bolton CCG are not part of this contract as they use different contracting arrangements to place outside of their adminstrative area.
For out of area placements the Council will match the fee levels set by the local authority for the area in which the care home is located.
