Health Board criticised for unpaid invoices worth £261,000

Alec Doyle, local democracy reporter

Frustrated councillors have called on Jeremy Miles MS to put pressure on Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board over a quarter of a million pounds of unpaid invoices.

Members of Flintshire council’s Corporate Resources Overview and Scrutiny Committee were underwhelmed after writing to the Welsh Government’s Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care to ask for help.

They want to unlock payments from the board of £261,000 of invoices for Joint Funded Care Packages which have become stuck in arbitration.

Joint Funded Care Packages

Joint Funded Care Packages are complex arrangements designed to meet the needs of individuals in the community. These are funded either by Social Services the Health Board or jointly between the health board and Flintshire County Council.

The packages Betsi Cadwaladr UHB jointly funds with Flintshire require the authority to invoice the board for payment. But since 2021 the board has built up a backlog of £550,000 of unpaid invoices for care packages, with around £227,000 outstanding for more than 12 months.

Flintshire’s Social Services team is working through roughly half of those, with £261,000 stuck in arbitration, as the board disputes its responsibility to pay for certain individuals’ care.

Having written to the First Minister to appeal for help to get things moving, Cabinet Secretary Jeremy Miles MS responded.

“I fully appreciate the importance of timely payment of agreed CHC contributions from the local Health Board for your budget management processes and recognise that late or reduced payments will have a real and challenging impact on your budget management,” he wrote.

“I note the content of your letter regarding the levels of current debt accumulated, and I also acknowledge the positive impact the local ‘Arbitration’ process appears to be having in resolving these matters, although recognise that there are still some outstanding cases to address.”

Unsatisfactory

That response was unsatisfactory for councillors, who believe the arbitration system is broken.

Deputy leader of Flintshire Council and Cabinet Member for Social Services and Wellbeing Cllr Christine Jones said: It’s telling us what we’re already doing. We have controls and processes in place.

“I would have liked a little more support from the minister. Perhaps we should follow up to ask Jeremy Miles to be more constructive, to speak with the health board to put pressure on them for us.”

Cllr Alasdair Ibbotson was incensed by the minister’s response.

“Our social services team is doing all they can to recover this money,” he said. “The difficulty is there are systemic issues between health boards and local authorities and Mr Miles seems reluctant to get involved and impose the shake-up that is needed.”

Cllr Richard Jones – also deputy leader of the council and – as former chairman of the Corporate Resources committee – the councillor who wrote to Mr Miles, echoed the sense that the council expected more from the Welsh Government.

“Arbitration is the issue we are having. The process isn’t working. He actually says in there he sees the positive impact of arbitration.”

The committee agreed to ask the current chairman, Cllr Bill Crease, to appeal again to the minister for help to end the deadlock.