Stuart Anderson MP has welcomed an investment of £226,284 to improve health services across Wolverhampton. The Government has confirmed allocations for adult personal social services for the financial year 2023 to 2024. The funding from the Department of Health and Social Care pays local authorities, including the City of Wolverhampton, to provide specific adult social care duties locally.
As part of the funding, Wolverhampton has been equipped with £197,247 from the Local Reform and Community Voices grant, which provides one element of the non-ringfenced funding provided to ensure an effective local Healthwatch is operating in the area. Local Healthwatch schemes ensure that people's views and experiences inform the commissioning, provision, and scrutiny of local health and social care services. The allocations for this have a minimum amount of £10,000 per local authority.
The grant also includes funding for Independent NHS Independent Complaints Advocacy Services (ICAS) which ensure that, if someone is unhappy about any aspect of care or treatment, they are supported in accessing their right to make a complaint and to have that complaint responded to. The grant also provides additional funding for the deprivation of liberty safeguards (DoLS) in hospitals.
In addition, Wolverhampton has been allocated a £29,037 War Pensions Disregards grant, providing funding that allows local authorities to disregard (for the purposes of social care charging) all payments made under the War Pension Scheme with the exception of Constant Attendance Allowance. This grant is worth £12 million nationally by using the adult social care relative needs formula to weight the number of war pensioners by social care need and then divide to local authorities based on this. This option was chosen because it gets as close as possible (given the available data) to the number of people receiving a war pension
Stuart Anderson said: “I am pleased to welcome this funding to improve health services across Wolverhampton, including support for independent complaints advocacy services. Whilst the vast majority of patients receive safe and effective care, I welcome the Government’s commitment to a systematic approach of understanding and learning. Organisations such as Healthwatch provide a fantastic service in ensuring that the voices of service users are heard across England’s healthcare system. I am pleased that funding for Healthwatch England has increased over the years, and that funding continues to be provided for the local scheme in Wolverhampton. The funding will also help veterans to access vital social care support. As a fellow veteran, this is something close to my heart. I will continue to work hard to ensure that the quality of local health services is improved for all.”