NHS Continuing Care

NHS Continuing Care is a package of care provided outside hospital to people who have ongoing healthcare needs. This package is funded by a person’s local NHS Primary Care Trust or PCT and is there to offer assistance to people who require care provided by health professionals over an extended period of time. These needs are likely to be complex, serious and long term, caused by a disability or chronic illness, or following hospital treatment.

There is also ‘fast track continuing care’ which meets the cost associated with a terminal illness.

Eligibility means that if you remain in your own home the NHS will pay for healthcare, including any personal care and if you are in a care home, as well as meeting the cost of your healthcare needs, the NHS will pay for your care home fees.

Continuing Care is not means tested, so the size or nature of the estate of the person concerned is irrelevant.

To be eligible for continuing care, a person must be assessed as having a primary healthcare need, which is not the sort of need that a local authority might be reasonably expected to provide for. As such, that person might have a complex medical condition requiring high intensity and or specialised nursing support. It does not necessarily follow that one condition, of its own, is required to be present to give rise to such a high level of need. There can be multiple conditions, requiring a high level of support across a number of disciplines which can still give rise to a primary healthcare need.

Rix & Kay regularly advise clients on how to apply for NHS Continuing Care and even assist with the sometimes difficult and frustrating process that the Primary Care Trust can put the family through. We assist in appealing decisions and, to date, have saved clients thousands of pounds in unnecessary care fees.