The Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Partnership (ICP) met to discuss a Working Well update, the implications of devolution and the white paper, and an update from the Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB). The meeting was scheduled to include an overview of the requirements and timescales for the development of Get Lancashire & Cumbria Working plans and how governance would be established to facilitate integrated approaches to strategy development and programme implementation. The ICB update included an overview of the 2025/2026 Commissioning Intentions.

Working Well

Dr Michele Lawty-Jones, Director, Lancashire Skills & Employment Hub, was scheduled to present a Working Well Update to the Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Partnership (ICP). The report pack included a summary of key themes from the ICP Work & Health session held in March 2025, as well as updates on developments across the Lancashire & South Cumbria system.

The report pack noted that Integrated Care Partnerships (ICPs) have been recognised as an important forum for engagement with a broad alliance of partners in the work, skills and health agenda, particularly in the development of local Get Britain Working plans. The Get Britain Working White Paper, published in November 2024, set out key issues regarding the growth in economic inactivity and the need to better integrate work, health, and skills provision.

The key priorities identified in the paper are:

• too many people are excluded from the labour market especially those with health conditions, caring responsibilities or lower skill levels
• too many young people leave school without essential skills or access to high-quality further learning, an apprenticeship or support to work so that they can thrive at the start of their career
• too many people are stuck in insecure, poor quality and often low-paying work, which contributes to a weaker economy and also affects their health and wellbeing
• too many women who care for their families still experience challenges staying in and progressing in work
• too many employers cannot fill their vacancies due to labour and skills shortages, holding back economic growth, driving up reliance on overseas labour, and undermining living standards
• there is too great a disparity in labour market outcomes between different places and for different groups of people

Local Get Britain Working Plans are expected to be published by September 2025, with two plans expected for Lancashire and South Cumbria: Get Lancashire Working and Get Cumbria Working.

The report pack also included details of a Work, Skills and Health Workshop that took place on 10 March 2025. Michael Wood, Head of Health Economic Partnerships, NHS Confederation, and Tim Moore, Work and Health Regional Advisor, Joint Work and Health Directorate, were scheduled to speak at the workshop.

The workshop was scheduled to cover:

• The policy context
• The local context, with Michele Lawty-Jones, Director, Lancashire Skills and Employment Hub, Simon Lawrence, Director of Growth & Regeneration, Lancashire County Council, Gary O'Neill, Associate Director, Population Health, LSC ICB, and Charlotte Moul, Workforce Partnership Development & Programme Manager, LSC ICB, scheduled to speak
• Lived experience and co-production, with Ian Treasure, Programme Lead, LSC WorkWell Vanguard, scheduled to speak

The Lancashire Combined County Authority was also scheduled to be discussed.

The report pack also included information on Economic Inactivity in Lancashire, noting the growth in economic inactivity nationally and in Lancashire. It said that jointly funded research by three upper tier authorities, working with the ICB and partners, had shown that health was a significant contributor, and that there was accelerated demand for employment support.

The WorkWell Partnership Programme was also scheduled to be discussed. The programme is one of fifteen vanguards across the country, led by the Integrated Care Board, working in partnership with the authorities. It runs until March 2026 and involves WorkWell coaches supporting people with health conditions in the workplace or who are newly unemployed.

The Connect to Work programme was also scheduled to be discussed. The programme is a supported employment programme targeted at adults with disabilities and health conditions and groups that have barriers to gaining sustained paid employment.

The Emerging Work and Health Agenda in South Cumbria was also scheduled to be discussed, with Katrina Stephens, Director of Public Health, Gary O'Neill, Assoc. Director for Population Health, and Charlotte Moul, Workforce Partnership Development & Programme Manager scheduled to speak.

Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board Update

Jane Cass was scheduled to present an update on the Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB). The report pack included an overview of the 2025/2026 Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board (LSC ICB) Commissioning Intentions¹. The report pack stated that the ICB's annual budget for 2025/26 is approximately £5.4billion and that immediate action is required to reduce spending. The ICB has set out detailed plans on how it will use the 2025/26 allocation, reduce waste and duplication, and reconfigure services. These plans are aligned to address the financial challenge as well as the health and care challenges faced in the system.

The plans include:

• Commissioning intentions, which describe what the ICB will commission
• A financial improvement plan, which sets out plans for improving efficiency across the system
• The LSC 2030 Roadmap, which describes the plan to support delivering short, medium and long-term service transformation

The report pack also addressed the new 10-year health plan for the NHS, which is anticipated to be published in the summer, and provided an update on the national ICB reforms. National NHS guidance to support these reforms has been shared through a draft Model ICB Blueprint.

The Commissioning Intentions 2025/26 document sets out the ICB's commissioning intentions for 2025/26 within this challenging context. The vision is to have a high-quality, community-centred health and care system by 2035, focusing on prevention, delivering care in people's homes or as close to home as possible, and making the best use of technology.

The ICB strategic objectives are:

• Improve quality, including safety, clinical outcomes and patient experience.
• To equalise opportunities and clinical outcomes across the area.
• Make working in Lancashire and South Cumbria an attractive and desirable option for existing and potential employees.
• Meet financial targets and deliver improved productivity.
• Meet national and locally determined performance standards and targets.
• To develop and implement ambitious, deliverable strategies.

The report pack stated that the ICB was one of several NHS systems subjected to an NHS England (NHSE) investigation and intervention process. As a result, NHS England recommended that four organisations were placed into NHS Oversight Framework Segment 4 and for each organisation to receive intensive support from the National Recovery Support Programme.

The affected organisations are:

• NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria ICB
• Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
• East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust
• Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

The report pack also detailed the system challenges faced across health and care, including significant health and wellbeing issues, widening health inequalities, a backlog of appointments, and increasing demands on services alongside financial and workforce constraints.

The report pack stated that the ICB ran a programme of public and partner engagement between September and November 2024, under the banner 'Your health. Your future. Your say.' Common themes that came out of the engagement included the need for more care in the community, addressing capacity and waiting times, integrating services, and providing care for vulnerable populations.

The report pack also detailed the national priorities for 2025/26, including reducing waiting times for elective care, improving performance against cancer standards, improving A&E waiting times and ambulance response times, improving access to general practice, and improving patient flow through mental health crisis and acute pathways.

In addition to the national priorities, the report pack detailed additional local priorities, including:

• Urgent care
• Planned care
• Cancer
• Diagnostics and pathology
• Primary care
• Community care
• All-age continuing care (AACC)
• Mental health
• Learning disabilities and autism
• Children and young people
• Maternity
• Population health

The report pack also detailed place priorities for Blackburn with Darwen, Blackpool, Lancashire, and South Cumbria.

The report pack also detailed transformational intentions for 2025/26 onwards, including managing long-term conditions in primary care, improving end-of-life and frailty care, intermediate care, and service configuration.

The Model Integrated Care Board – Blueprint v1.0 was also included in the report pack. The blueprint sets out a vision for how ICBs can operate within a changing NHS landscape, covering purpose, core functions, enablers and capabilities, and managing transition.

Other business

Councillor Damian Talbot, Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council, was scheduled to propose two items of urgent business: a review of the purpose/role of the ICP, and ICP administrative resourcing.