Call our team of experts at Compass Continuing Healthcare today to see if your relative is entitled to continuing healthcare funding or a package of care. We can assist at every stage, including with the continuing care assessment.
Our office number is 0800 008 7777. Alternatively please complete our FREE online assessment and we will contact you.
What is a continuing care assessment? Can the NHS or local authority carry out a continuing care assessment on my relative while I’m not present? My relative is being discharged from hospital to a care home and the hospital has refused to carry out a full assessment for NHS continuing health.
The Compass Continuing Healthcare team are experts in NHS funding for care homes, also known as continuing healthcare funding.
We help individuals and their family secure funding to pay for their care costs from the NHS where their need for care is a health need. If you have a relative paying for care, health services or who is to be discharged from the hospital shortly to a residential or care and support home, contact us today on 0800 008 7777 or complete our free initial assessment
A Continuing Healthcare Funding full assessment is the first stage in the process of assessments to determine whether an individual qualify for NHS continuing healthcare and NHS funded nursing care. It is also sometimes known as NHS funding for care homes.
A copy of the Continuing Healthcare Funding checklist can be found here for your reference.
The framework for Continuing Healthcare Funding checklist should be completed in the first instance at the first stage of the continuing care assessment before an individual is discharged from the hospital to any health and social care environment. It should be completed for every person and it is not correct to say, for example, they are not bad enough to need a checklist. Everyone has a checklist completed as it is the tool used to determine whether someone can qualify for NHS continuing healthcare and NHS funded nursing care. Until it has been completed it cannot be determined whether the person is entitled to the NHS funding.
Tho evaluate whether someone is eligible for an NHS continuing care assessment the individual’s health must be considered across a broad range of areas, with examples including their cognitive function – for example does the individual have a concept of time date and place, as well as issues like mobility and psychological and emotional needs?
The individual’s needs are scored as being A, B or C in severity, with A being the highest score. If the patient is scored by the clinical commissioning groups as having 2 or more A’s, 1 A and 4 B’s, or 5 or more B’s, then they are deemed to be serious enough to proceed to the next stage in the continuing care assessment, known as the decision support tool assessment. An example copy of the decision support tool can be found here.
It is crucial that the continuing care assessment is undertaken in the presence of the individuals family and that they are given an opportunity to contribute their views as to what the scoring should be.
The full assessment stage of the continuing care assessment is undertaken by a multi-disciplinary team of clinicians and social care professionals. They will score the individuals’ needs on a level of priority; severe, high, moderate, low, or no needs. They will then make recommendations as to whether the individual’s needs are sufficiently complex, intense, and unpredictable in their nature and determined to be a primary health or mental health need that warrants continuing healthcare funding to pay the personal care costs.
It is crucial that the individual is scored correctly according to their needs if they are underscored and the needs are downplayed it can, and often will result in the funding not being provided for an individual who ought to be eligible. The Compass Continuing Healthcare team are industry experts in this highly specialist field. We are experienced in gathering the key independent evidence contained within the hospital, care home and GP records and retrieving the key information that supports an entitlement to the funding with a cross-reference to the criteria. As such, we can assist in building the case and presenting the NHS with comprehensive proof of an individual’s entitlement so there is no option but to award the NHS funding for care homes to meet the care home fees.
We often have greater success in a swifter time frame if we are involved at an earlier stage and are able to influence decisions being made in the patient’s favour, rather than having to assist in overturning negative decisions that have already been made. Don’t delay, contact an expert member of our team and allow us to help guide you through matters from day one, starting with the continuing care assessment. Our office number is 0800 008 7777. If you complete our online assessment survey an expert will consider your relative’s particular circumstances and contact you.
Author: Tim Davies LLB
