Contact our team of experts at Compass CHC today to see if your relative is entitled to continuing healthcare funding to pay for their care home fees in full: 0800 008 7777.
Continuing care, also known as continuing healthcare, or CHC funding, is funding provided by the NHS to meet the cost if an individual’s care in full, regardless of what assets they may have. Continuing care is not in any way means tested and it is not a bar to receiving it if the patient owns their own home. The NHS principle of “free care for all” applies and it provides full funding for the cost of the individual’s care even if they have assets that exceed the normal means testing limit of £23,250.
Continuing care is provided to individuals to meet the cost of their care in full where their need for care primarily is a health need. A primary health need is determined not on the basis of whether the patient has any particular health condition. There is no automatic entitlement to the funding because somebody has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s disease, but instead the assessments consider how any conditions impact on the person’s health needs across a broad spectrum of issues.
Areas considered include the patient’s cognitive function, whether there are any psychological or emotional needs, whether there is any challenging behaviour, whether there are issues with incontinence, breathing, mobility, altered state of consciousness.
As such there is an extensive assessment of the individual’s needs and then the person’s health is considered as an overall picture.
If the needs are serious enough then the overall need is determined to be primarily a health need and there is an entitlement to continuing care.
The issue comes in that continuing care is very expensive for the NHS to provide in the same way that meeting nursing home costs of £800 plus a week are very expensive for an individuals to have to pay. This unfortunately can lead to the NHS applying a higher bar to satisfy than ought to be the case, and individuals who ought to be eligible for continuing care funding to meet the cost of their care, being denied the funding and forced to pay privately. Given that rates of pay for care can exceed £40,000 annually such a decision can have devastating repercussions on an individual’s savings, and can even result in the family home having to be sold to pay for care.
As such it is crucial to ensure that you have access to an expert who is able to secure continuing care funding where it should be available. Compass Continuing Healthcare care are industry experts and have a high success rate of securing continuing care funding on behalf of our clients from day 1. We can assist in building the case, gathering the required evidence and drafting the necessary arguments and representations to present to the NHS to undermine negative funding decisions and secure successful outcomes in appeal hearings.
Experts have their place in this process. Whilst it is tempting to attempt to secure continuing care funding without assistance from an expert such an attempt could prove to be a significant false economy. Against the backdrop of weekly care costs in excess of £800, even a delay of a month in securing the funding can be catastrophically expensive.
As such if you have a relative paying for care privately and you believe that their need for care is a health need contact the Compass Continuing care team today. You can complete our FREE, confidential assessment here or call an expert member of our team on 0800 008 7777.
Author: Tim Davies LLB
