NHS Continuing Healthcare describes fully funded care people receive when they have a primary health care need. Care is often provided over an extended period of time, depending on the individual’s needs. Care can be provided in a variety of settings; the individual’s home, care home, hospice, an NHS hospital or an independent hospital.
NHS Continuing Healthcare is designed for adults, and based on assessed needs, including both physical and mental health needs. Sometimes assessments may be accelerated (fastracked) to allow for rapid discharge of an individual from hospital or hospice to allow for care to be provided at home when the preferred place of care and death is home.
Please note that Continuing Healthcare Funding Assessments are not usually appropriate for someone undergoing treatment or rehabilitation for a treatable episode of ill health.
Where an individual’s needs are primarily to do with healthcare, responsibility for meeting that need falls to the NHS. Local authorities provide specific social care services. The NHS (e.g. District Nurse) and local authorities (social worker or joint care manager) work together to assess an individual’s needs to agree the best way forward to support that person. Sometimes this may be a package of care which is provided by both services.
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