NHS Continuing Care Funding
More than three thousand people died in England last year awaiting an NHS decision on their eligibility for home care funding.
Continuing healthcare (CHC) is a funding package which is given to people with severe and complex health and social care needs, such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s, but who are not in hospital.
Applications should take no longer than 28 days to deal with, but clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) have recently revealed 3,400 people died in 2017-2018 while awaiting a decision on their application.
Figures from NHS England show that last year, almost 150,000 CHC assessments were carried out. A third of assessments resulted in the applicant being told they were not eligible for funding.
A spokeswoman said Wiltshire CCG could not comment on individual cases but she did comment that most adults in England have to pay some or all of the costs of any care they receive and many applicants for CHC funding are often seeking end of life care. Being awarded CHC funding means the NHS pays for things such as care at home or in a nursing home.
A report by the National Audit Office in 2017 found that providing CHC costs the NHS more than £3bn a year.
Matina Loizou from the charity Parkinson’s UK said: “The fact that some families are notified about the outcome of their application after their loved one has died is as tragic as it is ludicrous.”
Sadly, the CHC application process can be a very isolating and hopeless experience, and the impact on families can be immense, a fact that does not seem to have been taken on board by some of the NHS assessors.
More people are expected to apply for funding in future as a result of an ageing population.
The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee has recently warned that plans to make £855m of efficiency savings in continuing and NHS-funded nursing care by 2020-21, could result in fewer people being awarded funding in the future.
A spokeswoman for NHS England said: “Spending on continuing healthcare is going up as more people are being supported but it is local GP led groups that undertake eligibility assessments, using the National Framework for Continuing Healthcare.
“While there have been recent improvements in practice, there is potential to make the process more efficient and effective for patients, as the majority of people put through an assessment turn out not to need it.”
If you are concerned about a loved one’s eligibility or would like some advice on issues surrounding this area please contact us.
Ann-Marie Matthews is a solicitor in the private client team at Barker Gotelee, Solicitors in Suffolk.
Suffolk Probate Solicitors – for more information on our range of legal services, please call the team on 01473 611211 or email [email protected]
