Continuing Healthcare (CHC)

dawnharrison

Hello all,
CHC has been covered before but several years ago.  Many people have never heard of it, but it could save you and your loved ones £000s in healthcare costs that should be funded by the NHS.  Please take a look at our website which contains loads of really useful information and details of our campaign for a Judicial Review.  You may not be affected now, but you and/or your loved ones may benefit from this in the future (you might also be entitled to retrospective funding running into many thousands of £s.
Dawn
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/post/discussion/www.nhschcscandal.co.uk

badmemory

You would struggle to get a dementia diagnosis from anywhere.  Admittedly it is 5 years ago, but a hospital doctor asked why my mother didn't have a dementia diagnosis.  My reply I don't know but doctors at her previous 3 admissions over 3 years had asked the same question.  She didn't have one because it would cost them money.

AD100

dawnharrison said:

Hello all,
CHC has been covered before but several years ago.  Many people have never heard of it, but it could save you and your loved ones £000s in healthcare costs that should be funded by the NHS.  Please take a look at our website which contains loads of really useful information and details of our campaign for a Judicial Review.  You may not be affected now, but you and/or your loved ones may benefit from this in the future (you might also be entitled to retrospective funding running into many thousands of £s.
Dawn
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/post/discussion/www.nhschcscandal.co.uk

Thank you Dawn.  As you suggest, NHS Continuing Healthcare (CHC) is not referred to as the NHS' best kept secret for nothing, with many people not being funded when they should be.  If starting out on the journey, the best way by far to approach it is to be fully informed and prepared from the outset, and not be bamboozled by the tactics of the Clinical Commissioning Groups.  The Judicial Review is long overdue to put an end to the current scandal. 

born_again

badmemory said:

You would struggle to get a dementia diagnosis from anywhere. 

Strange as we have a unit near us that does exactly that all under the NHS. Referral from GP to unit. They confirm the diagnosis.
Mother was diagnosis  with dementia over 5 years ago. FIL law just this year.

Fruitcake

Dawn, you can't post live links because you are a NEWBIE. The link in your first post takes people straight back to this thread.

If you want to post links, until you get posting privileges you could change https to hxxps and tell posters to change it back to make it a live link.

You are right about CHC funding, as well as a number of other benefits being a well kept secret. We would never have known about it when my Dad had to move into a nursing home if we hadn't previously been given advice from a SOLLA agent (Society Of Later Life Advisors). 

Dad was fast tracked and granted CHC funding three days before he died, but it was backdated to the date the application was made.

A few years later my Mum had to be hospitalised and was assigned a social worker when it became obvious she would have to move into a nursing home. We were never told about the twelve week disregard by social services. 
Luckily our SOLLA agent told us also told us about  the "twelve week disregard" that means savings and property values are disregarded for twelve weeks when a person is being financially assessed to see if the council will pay for a care/nursing home. In other words, the council have to pick up the tab for the first twelve weeks even of the person owns property, or has savings above the threshold level where they must fund their own care.

Gradually my Mum deteriorated mentally and physically so we asked the nursing home to do a preliminary CHC assessment. This was to see if she was eligible for a full assessment, which if granted would be used to see if she was eligible for CHC funding. 
I hope that makes sense because it was a three stage process.

She was assessed and was granted Funded Nursing Care, worth in the order of £107 per week, but not the full CHC funding.
The nursing home manager told me repeat assessments could be done at any time if deemed appropriate. Last year I asked for another assessment and the preliminary assessment (carried out by a nursing sister at the home) showed she was eligible for the full assessment. The nursing home applied to the local authority who did the full assessment on Mum, and she was eligible this time. 
Even so, there is a lot of bureaucracy involved and Mum died before the payment arrived, but it was backdated to the date of the original application..

This website might be of use to anyone looking for more information about this subject.

What is the Decision Support Tool? | Compass CHC (continuing-healthcare.co.uk)

I also suggest people search for SOLLA agent near them to see if they can get a free half hour or hour. SOLLA agents are government approved to give specific financial advice about later life and end of life subjects.

The_Shadow

Hi to qualify for CHC health care you need 2 domains out of 11 rated as high.
The person i am talking about has the following conditions which i think would be rated as high.
Could someone please advise if CHC would be awarded on these conditions.

I have listed 5 of the 11 domains 

1   Breathing : severe COPD
3   Continence : Double continence
4   Skin Integrity : Muscle wastage and very thin skin which bruises easy 
5    Mobility : Unable to walk, wash and dress and in bed 24/7 
10  Drug Therapies : needs medication to control breathing advised to be on oxygen

Thanks for any comments