Department of Health and Social Care: Review of Section 75

On 13 September, 11:00 to 12:00, Care England hosted a joint online session with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) regarding the upcoming review of Section 75. This informative session allowed the DHSC to consult with providers on what they would like to see implemented as part of this review, and offer feedback on what points they should explore in their upcoming consultation they intend to include as part of this review.

You can watch a recording of the webinar below

A link to the presentation slides can be found here 

To submit a response, click here

What is Section 75?

Section 75 of the NHS Act 2006 enables NHS bodies and local authorities to enter into partnership arrangements which are prescribed in legislation. This allows:

• NHS bodies to carry out certain local authorities’ health-related functions together with their NHS functions.
• Local authorities to carry out certain NHS functions together with their local authority health-related functions.
• The establishment and running of a pooled fund which is made up of contributions by the partners, and out of which payments may be made towards carrying out the functions that are within the scope of the arrangements.
• Such arrangements can only be formed if it is likely to lead to an improvement in the way in which the functions are exercised.
• Any partnership arrangements entered into under s.75 of the NHS Act 2006 do not affect the liability and accountability of NHS bodies or local authorities for the exercise of any of their functions.
• Partners can also just pay each other for services, without a pooled fund being in place.

Why are the DHSC doing a review?

The DHSC want to consider if there are any changes we can make to existing legislation to facilitate the further use of pooled budgets because:

• The DHSC want to encourage greater use of partnership arrangements and pooled budgets more widely to support further integrated models of service delivery
• In the Integration White Paper, ‘Joining up care for people, places and populations’, we committed to reviewing the legislation covering pooled budgets to consider simplifying and updating the underlying regulations where necessary.

The review of section 75 will aim to better understand the barriers to further integration of pooled budgets and what legislative changes may be required to overcome these.

This current review of section 75 builds on previous engagement over a number of years with systems and places. The DHSC are also keen to hear how section 75 arrangements work following implementation of the Health and Care Act 2022.

What is the scope of the review?

We want to consider if there are any changes, the DHSC can make to existing legislation to facilitate the further use of pooled budgets.  We want to seek your views on:

• Whether the scope of section 75 should be widened to include additional health-related functions of local authorities and functions of NHS bodies.
• Whether the DHSC should consider widening the scope of organisations that can enter into arrangements under section 75.
• Any perceived barriers to pooling of budgets, and consider whether and if so, how the provisions within the regulations could be simplified to facilitate easier use and reduce the administrative burden on NHS bodies and local authorities.
• How can we strengthen and simplify the governance of section 75 arrangements to further support the commissioning of integrated care services.