Department of Health warms to Supporting People

The letter said: “OPDM has received feedback from administering authorities [the bodies that run Supporting People locally] that not all primary care trusts have fully engaged with the Supporting People initiative. This has been confirmed by the PCTs that we have spoken to.

“Can I therefore encourage chief executives of PCTs to ensure that their PCT is fully engaged on Supporting People.”

The letter points out that Supporting People could help health bodies to reach the DoH’s public service agreements targets set by the Treasury, such as providing support to older people in their own homes to prevent costly admissions to care homes and hospitals.

One member of every Supporting People commissioning body, which decides on supported housing services for the local authority area, is supposed to come from a primary care trust.

The letter shows an increased interest in Supporting People by the DoH. Previously it had been perceived to be indifferent to the programme.

The move comes after wrangling between the ODPM and the department of health over contributions towards the fund in the run-up to July’s spending review. An ODPM study, yet to be published, is also believed to show that the DoH benefits from services funded through Supporting People (HT 23 April, page 9).

The DoH’s letter was welcomed by the housing sector. Sarah Davies, policy officer at the Chartered Institute of Housing, said some health bodies had been preoccupied with targets such as reducing waiting lists and that had taken focus away from prevention.

Mark Bannan, Supporting People adviseor for the National Housing Federation’s south region, said: “There is a need to convince health of the longer-term cost benefits of supported housing to engage them to fund it.”

An ODPM spokeswoman said the DoH was continuing to explore other methods of getting primary care trusts to take part in Supporting People. She added that the ODPM has six pilot projects to build joint-working on Supporting People and show how the programme contributes to health targets.

Meanwhile the government responded to the ODPM select committee’s critical report on Supporting People. The ODPM rejected the committee’s suggestion that funding should be ring-fenced for “unpopular groups” such as single homeless people and ex-offenders. It said ring-fencing would counteract the aim of “seamless” services for people with multiple problems.