Health and Wellbeing Cabinet Portfolio

The Health and Wellbeing Cabinet Portfolio have identified the following challenges and risks:

Implementing health and care integration and the social care reforms will be a challenge.

Ensuring that work across the Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West Integrated Care System footprint reflects and delivers on the health and wellbeing priorities for our residents.

There is also an ongoing financial sustainability risk, with initial modelling indicating impact of social care reforms of between £40 to £70 million per year.

National shortages of key council roles, such as social workers and occupational therapists, resulting in difficulties in securing a stable, skilled workforce.

The wider social care market also has workforce challenges arising from impacts of:

• EU exit
• mandatory vaccines
• inequality of pay/status with NHS roles
• the attraction of better conditions and pay in other economic sectors

The impact of the pandemic on care providers has increased the risk of business failure in the care market. The council has a duty to safeguard and ensure continuity of care for service users in these events, which will impact social care capacity.

An increase in demand for adult social care services as we move through and recover from Covid-19 has put pressure on services such as limited resources with both staff and budgets.

Adult social care funding is dependent on the Better Care Fund, an annual grant shared between health and social care.

Public health is fully grant funded and Buckinghamshire receives one of the lowest per head allocation in the country.

Residents in Buckinghamshire experience health inequalities due to differences in social, economic and environmental factors.

These have been highlighted by Covid-19. The effects will be long-lasting and will need a concerted effort across partners to address this.