Welcome to Age Concern Neath Port Talbot

(Lay people usually use the term 'nursing care' and professionals 'continuing health care')

Confidential Online Assessment

If your partner, a relative or friend is receiving nursing home care because of physical or mental health needs, you may check online whether or not the fees should be met by the NHS (see below).

This confidential 60 second initial assessment is totally free, and places you under no obligation to proceed. Online Calculator

Are you the partner, a relative or friend of an older person paying for nursing home fees?

If so, you should know that a patient in a nursing home may be paying fees, which because of physical or mental health, should be funded by the NHS.

What is 'continuing NHS health care'?
A package of care arranged and funded solely by the NHS, which can be received in a hospital, nursing home or at the individual's home.

What does continuing NHS health care mean for the patient?
If the NHS fully funds continuing care in a care home, the patient does not have to make any contribution to the cost of that care.

Who is eligible for continuing NHS health care?
Each of the twenty-two local health boards in Wales produces policy documentation and eligility criteria which determine eligibility in their area.

However, the Court of Appeal and the Health Service Ombudsman have been critical of NHS bodies using over-restrictive criteria, which do not meet legal requirements, wrongly denying people the funding to which they are entitled.

A patient should be entitled to full NHS funding of their care home placement if their health and nursing care needs are:
* more than incidental or ancillary to the provision of accommodation that a local authority is under a duty to provide;
* not of a type that you would expect a social services department to be responsible for.

There are various options if you are dissatisfied with an eligibility decision, and it may be possible to recover wrongly paid nursing home fees, as well as saving on future fees.

The Age Concern Factsheet Number 20

This free factsheet explains the support available from the NHS if an individual has long term health needs following hospital treatment or because of a chronic illness or disability.

Patients, or the families of patients, with complex and/or intense healthcare needs who are cared for at home or in a care home would find this factsheet helpful.

To obtain a copy of the factsheet by post please call

Age Concern Neath Port Talbot

Helpline01792 818200

or

you may download a copy from Age Concern England's website

A Community Care in Wales factsheet supplement may be downloaded from Age Concern Cymru's website