A MAJOR plan to improve health and social care in Lancashire has been snubbed by national NHS chiefs.

Local authorities in England were asked to draw up proposals under the Better Care Fund earlier this year, in a bid to force through the integration of services.

But the plan put forward by Lancashire County Council and its partners, which included £26 million-worth of spending in East Lancashire, was one of only five not to win approval from NHS England. The others were for Hillingdon, Essex, Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire.

Lancashire had proposed several measures including a retraining programme for health and social care staff to better understand each others’ roles, care home improvement teams and seven-day services to support patients being discharged from hospital.

Azhar Ali, the council’s cabinet member for health and wellbeing, said the plan was not approved because assessors wanted more information.

He said: “We’re already working with our partners to revise Lancashire’s Better Care Fund plan and aim to submit this in time for the deadline in January.

“We are working to increase the level of detail about health and social care provision across Lancashire, including at very local levels.

“The assessors feel we can ensure our plan is approved by working through the areas identified as requiring more work and including additional detail.

“We are confident we will receive a positive outcome when we resubmit our plan in January.”

Blackburn with Darwen’s plan, which involves £12 million of public funds, has been ‘approved with support’, meaning it can be implemented with immediate effect.

It focuses on ensuring people have suitable packages of care when they are discharged from hospital, developing home care to ensure fewer people are admitted to residential homes and improving dementia diagnosis to provide early intervention.

Mohammed Khan, cabinet member for health and adult social care, said: “Council and NHS staff can now work together, rather than separately as in the past, to support residents who need both health and social care services.”