Who is responsible for healthcare in the UK? And how does this relate to providing care home costs in later life for an elderly person?
Contact our team of experts at Compass Continuing healthcare today to see if your relative is entitled to full NHS funding assistance for paying for care home fees. Our office number is 0121 227 8940. Alternatively please complete our FREE online assessment and we will contact you.
Who is responsible for healthcare in the UK? And how does this relate to providing care home costs in later life for an elderly person?
As we are all aware the National Health Service or NHS provides the health service in the United Kingdom under the overriding principle of “free care for all”. In relation to care home fee costs either in a nursing home or for a patient receiving care from carers in their own home, the NHS are also responsible for meeting the costs in full if the need for care is primarily a health need. This funding is known as continuing healthcare funding.
A person’s entitlement to continuing healthcare funding does not depend on where there are located, for example it is NOT a requirement that the person has to be living in a nursing home to receiving continuing health care.
Additionally it is NOT a requirement to have any diagnosed condition. Suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, dementia or Parkinson’s disease is not an automatic entitlement to continuing healthcare funding. Instead the individual’s health needs are assessed across a broad range of domains considering such factors as their cognitive function, whether there is any challenging behaviour, issues with mobility, incontinence, breathing and other issues. As such it is crucial that the full needs of the individual are considered and evidence to be able to support the contention they are entitled to the funding to meet the cost of their healthcare in the UK.
The difficulty is that it is often difficult to convince the NHS that the need for care is a health need, because if it is not the NHS is not responsible for the high costs of healthcare in the UK, so there is an incentive for them to avoid their responsibilities and not provide funding for individuals. This can result in a higher bar of eligibility being applied that is the case in law, and instances of individuals needs being downplayed and underscored so that they do not satisfy the criteria for eligibility doe continuing health care funding.
In this situation it is crucial to ensure the appeal procedure is undertaken and that you have the knowledge and expertise in your corner to fight the negative decision and secure continuing healthcare funding.
The Compass Continuing Healthcare team have extensive experience of the continuing healthcare appeals procedure and a high success rate of securing funding on our clients behalf. It is essential to your prospects of success that you know what information to secure and how best to construct your case and put forward your arguments for the entitlement to funding.
Contact the Compass Continuing Healthcare team today for further guidance and take the first steps towards
securing continuing healthcare funding. Our FREE online assessment is available here, or alternatively you can call us directly on 0121 227 8940.
Author: Tim Davies LLB
