Social Finance and Mid and East Antrim Agewell Partnership are working together to develop proposals for a new type of funding to support the NHS and voluntary and community sector to work better together through models of care such as IMPACTAgewell®. This would deliver improved outcomes for people and communities. Here we explore what this could mean for NI.
Transforming how the NHS does transformation
Voluntary and community organisations have unique insights and trusting relationships with the communities they serve. They often play a vital role in providing health and care support to communities, but the value and impact they generate is often overlooked by the statutory sector, such as the NHS. In addition, the sector can be fragmented, with duplication of effort and impact diluted. This leads to uneven funding with the cliff edge of grant funding making scaling and long-term service development difficult.
Social investment brings an opportunity to align the statutory and voluntary sector behind delivery of outcomes that matter to both people and the system. Through outcomes-based commissioning, value created is clearly shown. Pump-priming investment is provided to service providers who deliver interventions that achieve agreed outcomes. If, and only if, the intervention is successful is the investor paid back, usually by the statutory sector who commissions the service. The service provider is supported to achieve outcomes, and the financial risk to the statutory sector of trying something new is reduced. The voluntary and community sector can then demonstrate the value and outcomes that are being achieved in a way that supports sustainable, longer-term commissioning decisions.
What does that look like in practice?
Together with Mid and East Antrim Agewell Partnership, Social Finance have been working to bring social investment to NI through community led models of care such as IMPACTAgewell®. Social investment works by first bringing statutory and provider organisations together to develop a robust case for change. Pump-priming investment is then made available from a sympathetic investor who shares the aims and ambitions of the sector. A Community Transformation Fund is set up and as services are agreed and delivered, outcome repayments are provided back to the Fund to be recycled to support future service costs and new service interventions. We have investment from Macmillan Cancer Support to develop a community transformation fund for NI and are working to bring key stakeholders to the table to develop this.
Case study: IMPACTAgewell
- As part of the Community Transformation Fund development, Social Finance is working with IMPACTAgewell®, a community led model of integrated care working to improve health outcomes for Older People in Mid and East Antrim. They are currently funded by the Department of Health to deliver these innovative services until 2027. The Minister for Health has already stated that he sees this as a model which should be replicated for Older People across Northern Ireland. Social Finance understand the model of care, logic model and externally evaluated social and fiscal return on investment. Macmillan Cancer Support are keen for IMPACTAgewell to be a test site for their new Community Transformation Funding model.
- IMPACTAgewell® improves health and wellbeing outcomes for older people whilst addressing system wide stressors including hoarding, social isolation, delayed hospital discharge, medication misuse and high utility of GP and secondary care services. It has real potential for social investment funding, as it can identify and track metrics which have value for people and the statutory system.
- This model could pave the way for a Community Transformation Fund in Northern Ireland, with IMPACTAgewell® leading as a trailblazer for outcomes-based services.
Where next?
- Together, Social Finance and IMPACTAgewell® are working with Macmillan Cancer Support to bring the community transformation funding model to NI.
- If you are interested to hear more, please get in touch.
- Sarah McLaughlin, Executive Director of Health Programmes, Mid and East Antrim Agewell Partnership [email protected]
- Katy Nex – Director, Social Finance [email protected]
