CHC Full Assessment - Anyone had one?

SaladDistressing · 30 August 2019 at 8:52PM

Hi everyone,

A member of my family has just been notified they are eligible for a full CHC assessment. We have a decent understanding of what will happen, but there are some questions we can't find answers to and I'm wondering if anyone here might be able to answer them for me.

Can anyone tell me what the assessment is actually like? Is it all just talking and explaining needs or are we going to need to drag out stacks of supporting evidence to validate what we're saying in some way?

Does the assessor carry out any physical tests, like with the home PIP assessment? Do they need to see the claimant moving/interacting with their home enviroment?

Does the assessor ask to look around their home or anything like that?

Are there any pot holes or curve balls thrown during the process that you wish you'd known about before the assessment took place?

I know it's generally a postcode lottery, but if anyone has been approved for full or partial CHC funding, what was the level of need which made them step up?

We don't think my family member is ill enough to qualify for funding yet, but from what I've read you technically don't need to be reliant on nursing staff and in a really terrible way to get it, but I've heard of people who are palliative who have had to fight tooth and nail for it, only to have the funding cut in the eleventh hour.

Hope someone has experience with this that could put our minds at ease.
Thanks for reading and for any replies.

elsien · 30 August 2019 at 9:01PM

I can only comment in people in residential/nursing care, which is where my level of involvement has been.
In those situations, it is very evidence based - if the care home don't have a record to evidence something is happening, then it's not taken into account. It may be different in a home environment, but I would think about evidencing as much as you can to be on the safe side. Even if it's as simple as in the form of keeping a daily diary.
It's also about the person's needs at the time of the assessment - if they've been worse but have now improved, the past issues won't be taken into account even if you think they are likely to recur.

It's not just based on the need, but on the complexity of the need, and can also vary between assessors. So you may have someone with dementia who qualifies for full funding because their behaviour is very difficult to manage (for example) but as they become calmer and no longer need the intense level of support then they can be reassessed and just qualify for the top-up rather than the full funding, or have it withdrawn completely.
Ditto if you have someone with epilepsy but the seizures are predictable and well managed, that is less likely to qualify them than someone whose seizures are less well controlled and/or still being assessed. It's not just the illness but the impact that it is having at the time of the assessment.

CHC Full Assessment - Anyone had one?

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