In October 2018, the NHS moved the goal posts – making it more difficult to qualify for free Continuing Health Care (CHC).
What used to happen?
A landmark judgment in 1999, known as the ‘Coughlan’ case, meant that if a person could show they have something known as a ‘primary health need’, all their care would be provided for free by the NHS.
Back then – and until very recently – before a person was discharged from hospital, their eligibility for CHC was checked. If the person was found to be eligible, they would either go back home or into a care or nursing home with a package of NHS funded CHC care.
What has changed?
In 2018, the Government announced some important changes to the way Continuing Health Care would be decided.
A new process was introduced. Patients were now sent from their hospital bed straight to a care home. They were told, ‘not to worry’ as their eligibility for CHC would be checked later in the care home.
This is great for the NHS because it frees up hospital beds and helps them achieve their targets of reducing bed-blocking. But it is bad news for patients because they are being discharged from hospital without the benefit of checks for CHC eligibility.
This new process is called discharge to assess or D2A.
Along with the new D2A process, the NHS introduced a new Decision Support Tool document (the paperwork used to check if a person is entitled to CHC) which changed some of the assessment criteria.
What is the effect of this new CHC process?
Despite an increase in the number of elderly, frail people in our population, the last statistics produced by the NHS (Q1 2019) reveal that fewer people are now being granted CHC.
Why? The reason for this is pretty clear, in my view. While a person is still in hospital, all the tests and evaluations needed to conduct a valid CHC assessment can take place in situ.
However, once you are in a nursing home, the chances of getting the community psychiatric nurse, dietitian, speech and language therapist, occupational therapist and physiotherapist to come out and conduct an assessment as part of Decision Support Tool process are somewhere close to zero!
The consequence of the Government moving the goalposts is that more people than ever before are being denied free CHC. They are instead made to undergo a financial assessment – otherwise known as the dreaded means test. Having been identified as self funders, they are then told they will have to use their savings and sell their own homes to fund their own care.
A recent report in the Daily Mail revealed that four hundred homes are being sold EVERY WEEK to fund elderly social care.
As if this wasn’t bad enough, local authorities are becoming more vigilant for any assets which have been ‘moved’.
In particular, they are on the lookout for so-called Protected Will Trusts, Asset Protection Trusts, or any ‘gifts’ that have been made immediately prior to someone going to care.
This will often result in an allegation of deliberate deprivation of assets. We’ve written a lot about this subject and you can read more here.
Where we are now and what can be done?
The bottom line is that 12 months after the new Decision Support Tool was introduced, the NHS is now denying more people than ever before the right to receive free care.
These are hardworking people who have paid their taxes all their lives and believed in the Government’s promise, that they would receive free health care, at the point of need, from ‘the cradle to the grave’.
If your relative is being denied CHC and you believe the decision is unfair can challenge it.
If your relative is still in hospital and you are being told they are due to be moved to a nursing home and their CHC assessment will be done later – don’t delay, call us NOW.
Get in touch with us now on 0203 653 0623. We are available from 8am to 7pm, Monday to Friday.Our initial 30 minute telephone chat is FREE so call the experts at Steene Law now for a conversation.
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