BETTER Care Together – the clinical strategy for the Morecambe Bay area which is being worked upon by local health partners - has been awarded £9.9m of national NHS funding.

Following the national announcement that Better Care Together had been selected as part of the ‘Vanguard’ for the NHS New Care Models scheme in April 2015, NHS England has announced that Better Care Together will receive the new investment from the national transformation fund for the year 2015- 2016.

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‘Vanguard’ communities have been selected by the NHS New Care Models Programme, to help deliver the NHS Five Year Forward View. Better Care Together applied to be a Vanguard site and was successful: one of just 29 successful applications across the country.


The money will be used to implement and accelerate a number of the main Better Care Together initiatives across Morecambe Bay in the coming months.

These initiatives include the further development of integrated care teams in local communities across Morecambe Bay; these are teams which offer “wrap around care” to patients with complex needs and improve information technology systems.

Other initiatives include working towards a more integrated urgent care system in South Lakeland and Barrow. Better Care Together can now also further progress care co-ordination, which is care of people who need urgent treatment, in Lancaster and Morecambe.

Andrew Bennett, Senior Responsible Officer for Better Care Together said, “We are absolutely delighted to receive this additional resource. It recognises that the work of 11 NHS and local government organisations, on behalf of the residents of Morecambe Bay, is seeing results. This financial award will enable us to build on the work of clinicians and staff, to implement some of our pilot work and improvements sooner than we had hoped.”