Frustrated by Continuing Care delays: Write to your MP

Writing to your MP may help you make progress with a Continuing Care application or appeal…

Many people find NHS delays in replying to correspondence, arranging proper NHS funding assessments and reviewing retrospective claims for NHS Continuing Healthcare wholly unacceptable.

Many families have been waiting months for even the smallest amount of progress to be made, and the current NHS backlog in reviewing claims for care fees wrongly charged in the past doesn’t shed a very optimistic light on any likely improvement in the short term.

That’s why it’s vital to be persistent in your pursuit of funding and not to let the NHS off the hook in any way or allow them to think you’ve gone away and given up.

It’s also vital to be as well-informed about the assessment and review process as you can be, so that you don’t get diverted by the misinformation about Continuing Care that is often given to families by people working in health and social care.

If you’re regularly in contact with the NHS about your funding application, appeal or review, but you’re still not getting anywhere, you may want to write to your MP.

You can find out who the relevant MP is at They Work For You or at Parliament.uk. It needs to be the MP in the constituency where your relative in care is based.

It’s best to put your concerns in writing and it’s also important to ask your MP to do something specific. This could be, for example, to write to the relevant Continuing Care office on your behalf, ask why there has been no progress on your case and to ask what will be done about it.

So, set out briefly why you feel aggrieved and make it clear what you’d like the MP to do.

There’s no guarantee that you’ll experience immediate fresh action on the part of the NHS, but it’s a step forward for you – and the more people who make their MPs aware of the often dire situation with funding assessments, the better.

Let us know how you get on. And if you’ve already written to your MP, did it have a positive outcome?