Decision details

To agree the Harrogate and Rural Alliance partnership arrangements for 2024/25

To agree the extension of the Section 75 Agreement for the Harrogate and Rural Alliance within scope of the original contract, for a term of 12 months from 01/04/2024 to 31/03/2025 and that a further report will be brought forward for consideration during 2024/25 on any longer-term arrangements proposed for April 2025 onwards.

The benefits of extending the Section 75 Agreements and the Alliance Agreement is that the legal framework is already in place; the extension has been agreed by partners; and it allows the work to be undertaken to develop the intermediate care model and review the wider HARA model in terms of the vision for this moving forward.

The proposal is to focus on the core responsibilities of HDFT and NYC, including the development of the intermediate care model; with the latter focus including, potentially:
• Community Discharge Hub
• Supported Discharge Beds
• Reablement
• Occupational Therapy Team
• Urgent Community Response
• Intermediate Care beds (managed by NYC care provider services)

Three (3) other potential options have been considered with regard to the development / future of the HARA model

1. Ending both Section 75 agreements and replacing them with a different, longer-term contractual arrangement – however, it is felt that more testing of the benefits of the current integrated model are needed before new longer-term arrangements are considered
2. Ending the HARA integrated model with effect from 31 March 2024 – this option would feel premature given the fact that COVID has impacted significantly on the original ambitions and baseline objectives and metrics for HARA.
3. Extending the current Provider Section 75 agreement for longer than 1 year. There are contractual limitations of how long this agreement can be extended for and therefore it is important that this next twelve months are efficiently used to fully explore any future agreements.