“My relative has dementia. Will the NHS meet the cost of their care when they are discharged from hospital to a nursing home?” The answer to this question is possibly.
Contact our team of experts at Compass Continuing healthcare today to see if your relative is entitled to NHS continuing healthcare to pay their care home fees in full. Our office number is 0800 008 7777. Alternatively please complete our FREE online assessment and we will contact you.
“My relative has dementia. Will the NHS meet the cost of their care when they are discharged from hospital to a nursing home?” The answer to this question is possibly.
The base position is that if an individual’s need for care is primarily a health need then NHS continuing healthcare funding will be provided and this will meet the cost of their care in full. However having a medical condition or disease such as Parkinson’s disease, dementia or Alzheimer’s disease is not an automatic entitlement to NHS continuing healthcare. Instead there are a series of assessments undertaken that score the needs of the particular patient and determine whether overall their need for care is a health need.
The difficulty is that the NHS are reluctant to provide this funding as it is very expensive and they simply do not often have the budgetary resources available to meet the costs. We often hear of people having been informed by the NHS that the criteria to satisfy is higher than is in fact the case. As an example we are frequently informed by clients that they have been told that NHS continuing healthcare is only available to individuals receiving palliative care with a short life expectancy. This is simply not correct. Life expectancy has no part in the criteria for assessment as to whether an individual is entitled to NHS continuing healthcare. As such whilst it is correct that someone receiving palliative care with a short life expectancy may well be entitled to NHS continuing healthcare, it is not a requirement that this is the case to be eligible.
Additionally it is often necessary to challenge negative decisions made by the NHS regarding eligibility for NHS continuing healthcare and to enact the appeals procedure as often individuals needs are incorrectly assessed and underscored so that they do not meet the criteria and NHS continuing healthcare is refused. Clearly this is not appropriate and if an individual satisfies the criteria they ought to receive the funding.
In order to ensure the highest prospect of success of securing NHS continuing healthcare it pays dividends to receive expert advice from industry experts who have a strong track record of securing NHS continuing healthcare on behalf of their clients.
Knowing the procedure, being able to correctly interpret and understand the criteria, the scorings and the individual’s medical records are essential to being able to build the strongest case to disassemble an incorrect decision made by the NHS regarding funding entitlement. At Compass Continuing Healthcare we have a strong success rate of securing NHS continuing healthcare for our clients in the swiftest possible time frame.
If you have a relative paying for care or who is in hospital and will shortly be discharged to a care environment and you believe they ought to be entitled to NHS continuing healthcare to meet the cost of their care contact us today. Completing our free online assessment allows us to consider the particular circumstances of your case. You may also wish to call us directly on 0800 008 7777.
Author: Tim Davies LLB
