The Better Care Fund (BCF) for 2026 – 2027 aims to help integrated care boards and local authorities more closely align plans for integrated health and social care services to the development of relevant areas of neighbourhood health services:

• About the Better Care Fund: a brief overview of the BCF
• Grants and funding: outlines BCF funding streams
• Reporting and data: includes data on expenditure plans
• Regional teams and Discharge Admissions Group (DAG) support: summary of regional and DAG support
• Planning resources and return templates: that can be found on the better care exchange

About the Better Care Fund

The aim of the BCF is to support integrated care boards and local authorities in designing and delivering more integrated and preventative care, particularly for people with more complex health and social care needs, helping people stay independent for longer.

The Better Care Fund framework for 2026-27 outlines how integrated care boards and local authorities should make joint plans and pool budgets for the purposes of delivering better joined-up care. It constitutes the formal planning requirements national conditions for expenditure, and legal framework and sets out how integrated care boards, local authorities and health and wellbeing boards should plan and agree expenditure for 2026-27, working with local partners, and the associated assurance arrangements.

It reflects an initial set of changes to the BCF in line with the 10 Year Health Plan for England, and the Neighbourhood Health framework. We are asking local areas to begin aligning their BCF plans with the development of relevant elements of neighbourhood health. This should be done pragmatically, while still delivering increased investment in adult social care, including meeting the 4.4% uplift in the NHS minimum contribution.

Grants and funding

The BCF is composed of the following funds:

• the NHS minimum contribution, including the minimum contribution to adult social care (uplifted by 4.4%, with the remaining integrated care board contribution uplifted by 2.1%)
• the Local Authority Better Care Grant (LABCG)
• the Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG) – see annex A of Changing the way government allocates Disabled Facilities Grant funding to local authorities in England: Consultation response.

Integrated care boards and local authorities are also encouraged to voluntarily pool additional funding through the BCF where they are assured this represents value for money.

Reporting and data

Data on expenditure plans for 2025-26 is available to access here.

Previous BCF policies and reporting requirements are available on our archive website.

Regional teams and Discharge and Admissions Group (DAG) support

NHS England, Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) and Local Government Association (LGA) regional teams will focus on providing oversight and support to the most challenged areas focusing on improvement support and managing risk.

DAG, which is co-led by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and NHS England, works with a small subset of local areas experiencing challenges with delayed discharges and system flow, guided by local performance against the headline BCF metrics and regional intelligence. DAG will work closely with colleagues in regional teams, the LGA and the ADASS, and include local authority and NHS expert

Planning resources and return templates

Planning resources, including return templates are available on the Futures collaboration platform, the Better Care Exchange. Please email england.bettercarefundteam@nhs.net