Continuing Healthcare assessment

We tried but failed to get continuing healthcare for my 93 mil. She has advanced dementia and lives permanently in a care home now. I do not know of anybody who has successfully applied for continuing health care whatever the nursing needs of their elderly relative. I believe it to be a complete waste of time. Sorry to be so negative but it was very frustrating. My sil who filled all the forms in is a solicitor and is very competent but to no avail.

I think most people have to resort to relevant professional help. You really need a great deal of medical care as far as I can tell.

Hello, yes mum was granted funding after some time in care. It is difficult to understand the criteria to qualify as it doesn't seem to depend on how unwell the person is, rather how disruptive and time consuming their condition and behaviours are.
A points system really.
Dementia where behaviour can include being aggressive/resistive to staff, can help qualify but being unable to walk, understand anything, being doubly incontinent need hoisting, or indeed being bed bound does not necessarily qualify.
Once mum was past the disruptive stage, the funding was withdrawn.
Her health has not improved, alzheimers doesn't.
However, it is worth trying.
We did have funding for a while.
Good luck with it, it's not pleasant and can seem overwhelming but applying is doable.

I tried for my Mum when she was about to leave hospital to move to a care home. She was in her 90s and just spent 9 weeks in hospitals and had lots of health issues as well as dementia.
It was obvious the staff knew little about NHS Continuing Health Care but I insisted they provided me with the forms which they eventually did. I filled them in and there was a kind of scoring system. When I handed them back the nurse then downgraded all my scores so it looked as though Mum was able to do more!

Mum was still poorly, I was busy visiting 14 care homes to see where she could be moved and at that point I gave up.

By 2020 Mum was very poorly indeed and was paying nearly £1,000 a week for her care. I heard about Fast Track CHC and got the forms, spoke to the GP who said he knew nothing about CHC. I said “OK, I’ll complete the forms, you just sign to say you have seen Mum and confirm what I’ve said and let’s see how we get on.” Amazingly he agreed, I picked them up from the surgery and sent them off and within a week Mum was awarded full CHC which was then paid until she passed away several months later aged almost 97.

CHC really is the best kept secret and if doctors and nurses claim to know nothing about it then people can easily miss out.

The forms for FAST TRACK CHC are much easier to complete and are not just for end of life people but also for when there has been a sudden deterioration in their health.

It honestly is worth trying and with fast track you get an answer within a week or so. You might just have to be a bit bossy. 😉

Look at the Care To Be Different site. Loads of free info on there. Let us know how you get on.

caretobedifferent.co.uk/