National plan – Building the right support

Building the right support update

Building the right support was published in 2015 by NHS England, the Local Government Association (LGA) and the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) as part of the Transforming Care Programme. The guidance supports NHS and local authority commissioners to reduce the number of people with a learning disability and autistic people in a mental health inpatient setting and to develop community alternatives to inpatient care in line with the National Service Model. The guidance will be reviewed in the course of 2022/23, in the light of current needs and requirements and in line with the work of the ministerially led Building the Right Support Delivery Board.

However, the core values and principles which underpin Building the Right Support remain relevant and essential, with an ongoing commitment to reducing reliance on mental health inpatient care and to develop the housing care and support (based on each individual’s needs and preferences) to enable people to live healthy and positive lives in the community. It remains available for download for this reason, until the review of the guidance is complete.

The national plan – Building the right support – gives commissioners a clear framework to develop more community services for people with learning disabilities and/ or autism who display behaviour that challenges, including those with a mental health condition, and close some inpatient facilities.

Developed jointly by NHS England, the LGA and ADASS – with active input from people who use the services and their families – it will enable people to live more independent lives in the community, with support, and closer to home.

Supporting people with a learning disability and autistic people to live happier, healthier, longer lives: bitesize guide for local systems

The Building the right support action plan in July 2022 outlined a number of cross agency commitments. NHS England, along with partners, committed to publishing a range of guidance and information for commissioners to support them to commission for people’s lives and not just a service.

This guide contributes to delivering this commitment. It draws together a number of resources and provides a one stop shop for professionals who put in place services and approaches to support children, young people and adults who have a learning disability or who are autistic to lead healthier, happier, longer lives.

The guide includes 11 sections – the top ten essentials and a section for useful resources. These sections are:

  1. Citizenship and human rights
  2. Language
  3. Use the expertise of the people with lived experience – involvement and coproduction
  4. Commissioning for people’s lives and not just a service
  5. Commissioning skills and capability – national support
  6. Know your population
  7. Housing: getting a home
  8. Workforce
  9. Market shaping and community capacity
  10. Commissioning oversight
  11. Useful resources

Developing community services

The plan includes three core building blocks to radically change how we commission and deliver services, with £30m transformation funding, matched by CCGs being made available over three years and £20m capital funding over five years.

  • Forty eight Transforming Care Partnerships (TCPs) – these will bring together health and care commissioners, providers, charities, people with a learning disability and/or autism and their families to develop local plans by April 2016, to be delivered over three years. See the implementation plan (pg 37) for the geographical footprint of the TCPs.
  • A new financial framework – shared budgets across the NHS and councils, to deliver more joined-up services and speed up discharges, and for those who have been in-patients for five years or more, NHS funding will move with them to community services, for as long as they need it.
  • Service Model describing ‘good care’ – this is for health and care commissioners and has nine principles that define what good services should like, starting with ‘I have a good and meaningful everyday life’ and ‘my care is person-centred, planned, proactive and coordinated’, with supplementary information. This is based on the early learning from the six (Fast-Track) areas.
  • New guidance for Care and Treatment Reviews (CTRs) – to prevent unnecessary in-patient admissions and lengthy hospital stays; the review team includes people with ‘lived experience’ of learning disabilities/ autism’ and aim to ensure there is a care plan in place to meet the individual’s needs.
  • Housing guidance – Building the right home – has been developed jointly by NHS England, the LGA and ADASS; this supports NHS and local authority commissioners to expand the housing options available for this group of people who form part of the Transforming Care Programme.

Building the right support: one year on and two years ahead

One year after publishing our national plan we brought together TCPs and key stakeholders from across the country to reflect on the progress made to date and look ahead to the next two years of the national plan.

Find out more