Ministers have insisted that plans to integrate health and social care through the Better Care Fund are on track despite reports of Cabinet Office scepticism.
The Guardian today reported a Whitehall source saying that the Cabinet Office wanted ‘a lot more work done on the policy’.
A Cabinet Office spokesman told The MJ that the department did not comment on leaks.
But local government minister Brandon Lewis said: ‘It is completely untrue that the Better Care Fund has been put on hold.
‘The fund will begin next April as has always been planned, keeping people out of hospital for longer with better, more dignified care.’
A Department of Health spokesman added: ‘The Better Care plans start from April 2015 and we asked for early versions to be completed a year in advance so we could review them, check their level of ambition and test how they would be delivered.
‘This is what is happening now.’
