Should the NHS be paying for your relative’s care?
Some people’s care is funded in full by the NHS rather than paid for privately or by the local authority. It depends on health needs, not on savings. Far too many families are never told this exists.
What Continuing Healthcare actually is
NHS Continuing Healthcare is a package of care that is arranged and funded entirely by the NHS for adults whose need for care is primarily a health need rather than a social one. Where someone qualifies, the NHS pays for the whole package — including the full cost of a nursing home place.
That is the part families find hardest to believe. The test is not how much money someone has. It is the nature, intensity, complexity and unpredictability of their needs. A person with substantial savings can qualify. A person with none may not.
Why so many families never hear about it
Nobody in the system is responsible for making sure you know. Assessments are requested rather than offered, the paperwork is dense, and families are usually meeting it at the worst possible moment — during a hospital admission, or in the days after one.
By the time anyone mentions funding, a placement has often already been agreed and paid for privately. It is much harder to unpick a decision than to question it at the time.
- Care is being arranged mainly because of a health condition, not simply frailty or age
- There is significant cognitive impairment, or behaviour that is difficult to predict or manage
- Needs change often, or require input from a registered nurse
- A nursing home has been recommended rather than a residential one
- Your relative is being discharged from hospital with a substantial care package
- You have been told to self-fund without any assessment of health needs
- An assessment was done, refused, and nobody explained why
Six stages, and where families lose ground
Checklist
A short screening tool. It is deliberately generous — its only job is to decide whether a full assessment is warranted.
Full assessment
A multidisciplinary team looks at needs across a set of care domains and considers how intense, complex and unpredictable they are.
Recommendation
The team makes a recommendation on eligibility, supported by the evidence they have gathered.
Decision
The relevant NHS body makes the funding decision and must explain its reasoning to you in writing.
Local resolution
If you disagree, you can ask for the decision to be reviewed. Evidence and argument matter more than persistence here.
Independent review
Where local resolution does not settle it, there is a further independent stage you can request.
Is CHC worth pursuing in your case?
Five questions. No email, nothing stored. The result tells you whether it is worth asking for a Checklist, what to do first, and what that should cost you.
NHS Continuing Healthcare
Paying £1,000+ a week for nursing care?
The NHS may have a responsibility to fund some people’s care in full. Most families are never told how the assessment really works — or how to challenge a decision.
Eligibility cannot be guaranteed. Continuing Healthcare decisions are made by the relevant NHS body.
Continuing Healthcare questions
Is Continuing Healthcare means-tested?
No. Eligibility is decided on health needs. Savings, income and property are not part of the assessment.
My relative was refused. Is that the end of it?
Not necessarily. Decisions can be reviewed, and a refusal that was poorly evidenced or badly reasoned is worth examining. What matters is whether the evidence actually supports the conclusion that was reached.
Can you guarantee we will get funding?
No. Eligibility cannot be guaranteed. Continuing Healthcare decisions are made by the relevant NHS body. What we give you is an honest, evidenced opinion on whether a case is worth pursuing — including when it is not.
What does the £325 CHC Review include?
A review of the records you hold, a written opinion on eligibility, and a clear recommended next step. You keep the written opinion whether or not you take it further.
Do you attend assessments?
Support around assessments and reviews is arranged case by case. Start with the review so we both know what we are dealing with.
Is this only available near Eastbourne?
No. CHC reviews are carried out by telephone, video and document review throughout the UK.
You don’t need to know which service you need.
Just tell us what’s happening.
No pressure. No care-provider commissions. Just a conversation about what may help.Independent · no commission from any care provider · fees published
Professionals