2022 Year in Review
Care To Be Different remains the No.1 website for free information and resources relating to NHS Continuing Healthcare Funding (CHC) – free NHS funding for individuals aged 18 and over, with complex, intense, or unpredictable long-term healthcare needs.
Looking back over 2022, as we emerge from Covid, it has still been an extremely difficult and challenging year for everyone going through the CHC Funding process. However, on a positive note, we have seen the NHS tackle huge backlogs. Most noticeably, assessments and appeals for CHC Funding are being processed more quickly to catch up for lost time. More efficient Integrated Care Boards (formerly called Clinical Commissioning Groups) are getting their act together and some, arguably, are more efficient now than ever before, despite their own challenges.
At this time of year, we wanted to express our thanks to all our readers and contributors for your continued interest in our caretobedifferent website and for being part of our Facebook community– seeking advice and help from others facing similar challenges when fighting the NHS for vital free CHC Funding.
NHS Continuing Healthcare is supposed to be ‘free at the point of need’. You pay tax and save all your life, but when you need full time healthcare, why is it so hard to access? Why do families end up selling their homes needlessly, or using hard earned savings to pay for care which should be 100% free under the NHS?
Here’s a selection of popular blogs from 2022 which have helped our readers along their CHC process:
JANUARY
Get Help Breaking Down the Decision Support Tool: Psychological & Emotional Needs
Assessing psychological and emotional needs is just one of the 12 care domains that the NHS Multi-Disciplinary Team (MDT) assessors must consider when making their recommendation of eligibility for CHC Funding. However, in our experience, this domain is not particularly well understood. Our blog gives practical guidance and information to help increase your relative’s level of need in this domain.
FEBRUARY
Rather than trudge through the formal CHC assessment process, immediate Fast Track funding can be provided in 48 hours for individuals with a rapidly deteriorating condition that may be entering a terminal phase.
However, many families are wrongly told that NHS Continuing Healthcare funding is only available for individuals who are at the end of life. Not only is this incorrect, but it also often means that many vulnerable adults with significant healthcare needs are wrongly denied access to immediate free NHS-funded care. If you think your relative may be entitled to Fast Track funding, you must read this blog!
Continuing Healthcare Fast Track assessments – how to get a quick decision.
Post-Covid, NHS England have been striving to try and eradicate backlogs of CHC cases waiting appeal. To achieve this goal, appeal meetings are no longer open-ended and have been significantly reduced to only 2 hours! Good preparation is therefore essential to get your points over in the limited time available. Read our exclusive tips.
Only 2 Hours for an appeal to Independent Review Panel!
MARCH
Your 15 Step Guide to Understanding NHS England IRP Decisions
There are only 6 months to present an appeal to an NHS England Independent Review Panel following a negative outcome decision from a Local Resolution Panel. There is a lot of work to be done in this relatively short period. Our detailed blog helps you understand the IRP process and how you can improve your chances of being awarded CHC Funding.
Understanding What Is A ‘Well Managed Need’
The established principle of a ‘well-managed need’ is admittedly confusing due to a lack of clarity and guidance in the NHS National Framework. In our experience, many NHS assessors don’t really understand what this principle means or even how to apply it. As such, it is frequently misapplied and can lead to incorrect outcomes – resulting in families being wrongly refused essential free NHS healthcare.
APRIL
With Integrated Care Boards wading through huge backlogs of assessments post-Covid, some MDT panels were only reviewing one month’s worth of clinical records when making recommendations for CHC Funding – a far shorter period than the customary 3 months. This shorter period is grossly insufficient to get an accurate picture of an individual’s overall healthcare needs and, unfortunately, can disadvantage families! This blog provides useful tips to combat the NHS assessment system and knowing your rights.
How much clinical evidence should an MDT assessment consider?
MAY
TIPS on assessing ‘Altered State of Consciousness’ in your Decision Support Tool
This was the first blog in our new ‘TIPS’ series – aimed at helping readers who need a closer look at each care domain when completing the Decision Support Tool (DST).
ASC is one of the less familiar care domains in the DST. Typically, most cases here will involve seizures or Transient Ischemic Attacks (TIAs), Epilepsy (perhaps following a head injury or stroke) and Vasovagal Syncope (fainting).
JUNE
TIPS on assessing ‘Communication’ in your Decision Support Tool
Does your relative have cognitive impairment? Can they reliably communicate their needs, whether verbally or non-verbally, or do they need someone to interpret their needs for them? This blog provides essential help when assessing your relative’s level of communication in the DST.
JULY
If you have been told that your relative’s dementia will automatically qualify for CHC Funding, that is unlikely to be correct. Many individuals suffer with cognitive impairment such as dementia, but awards for CHC Funding are not about ‘labels’ but looking at the overall picture of healthcare needs on a holistic basis and assessing what skills are needed to manage them.
Get Help Breaking Down the Decision Support Tool: Cognition, Part 2
AUGUST
August continued the popular ‘Get help’ series for those looking for more in-depth guidance across the care domains. Technical, but packed with practical case studies to help you understand levels of care within each descriptor of the DST. For more help, we recommend you read other blogs in this excellent series.
SEPTEMBER
Incontinence and constipation can affect many residents in care daily, and involve careful management to avoid complications. Urinary Tract Infections, colostomy, or catheter care can impact on other care domains such as ‘Skin’ (leading to pressure sores), ‘Medication’, ‘Mobility’ and ‘Cognition’. This blog offers a detailed look at this care domain with case studies to help you when assessing your relative’s levels of care in their DST.
TIPS on assessing Continence when completing your Decision Support Tool
OCTOBER
You have to read it to believe it!
Untruths, misleading or incorrect statements about your entitlement to CHC Funding can put families off pursuing their application for CHC Funding – often resulting in their relative self-funding their own care from private savings or the sale of their home, quite unnecessarily.
Our blog deals with 10 typical untruths families are told about NHS Continuing Healthcare Funding. Do any apply to you?
10 More Untruths About NHS Continuing Healthcare Funding
NOVEMBER
More Items of Fake News To Put You Off Claiming CHC Funding!
The title says it all!
Unfortunately, fake news is not just reserved exclusively for the USA. A collection of more typically false statements given to families to put them off claiming their entitlement to CHC Funding.
DECEMBER
Focus on the ‘Behaviour’ domain in your relative’s CHC assessment
Focusing on whether an individual is displaying challenging behaviour can be a pivotal point in determining their eligibility for CHC Funding.
The assessment for CHC Funding must consider how ‘Behaviour’ impacts and interacts with other care domains. For example, how does it interact with their ‘Psychological and Emotional Needs’ Does it affect continence care (‘Continence’) or cause difficulties feeding the individual (‘Nutrition’)? Does it affect moving and handling an individual who is unable to mobilise independently (‘Mobility’)? One should also consider how poor cognition (‘Cognition’) or poor communication (‘Communication’) impacts on calming the person down.
We look forward to presenting many more informative blogs next year to help you at every stage of your relative’s assessment or appeal.
You can help our Care To Be Different community by:
Spreading the word and tell others about Care To Be Different.
Searching our website with key terms or phrases to access lots more free information.
Sharing your experiences of CHC assessments process with others and leave your comments below…
Telling us If there is a particular topic you would like us to cover, we’d love to hear from you! Just send an email via our “Contact Us” page with the subject “blog request” and we’ll do our best to cover your suggested topic.
“This is where the support from CTBD came in. Although we always believed he was eligible for full funding, the information from articles on the website and hints given on dealing with these assessments were vital and gave us the confidence to proceed. We had also purchased their book “How To Get The NHS To Pay For Care” which gave invaluable advice.” [Anonymous]
Wishing all our readers a happy, healthy and peaceful new year!
Thank you, from Care To Be Different!
Only to say that I have spent many hours researching CHC on behalf of my father in law who has paranoid schizophrenia and psychosis with many related conditions. He has been hospitalised twice in the past 4 months and is now in a care home provided by the local authority. I cannot get them to budge on anything from refusing to do a checklist to the date on which he is required to pay for his own care, absent CHC. Care to be different is, in my experience, by far the best and most comprehensive website of all the many I have visited and I am very grateful for the input. I have also learnt much from Angela’s you tube videos from 10 years ago detailing the difficulties and obfuscation encountered and from the solicitor’ link from the website as well as from Professor Clement. I am a solicitor with nearly 40 years experience of interpreting statutes, official guidance and statutory rules but the labyrinthine maze of interpretation, uncertainty and vagueness accompanying the CHC procedure is something I have never come across before – designed of course to put you off. How most people cope without professional advice, I do not know. Many thanks.