Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 23 April 2018 to Question 136434, for what reasons the answer to that question did not reference whether an impact assessment has been carried out on the effect on people with spinal cord injuries of the planned NHS Continuing Healthcare budget savings of £855 million by 2020-21.

It is the responsibility of clinical commissioning groups to commission NHS Continuing Healthcare packages of care appropriate to the needs of individuals, and for assessing the impact of their funding decisions. A national impact assessment has therefore not been carried out by the Department or NHS England.

Eligibility for NHS Continuing Healthcare is based on needs and is not specific to any particular condition or diagnosis. NHS England’s NHS Continuing Healthcare Strategic Improvement Programme aims to provide fair access to NHS Continuing Healthcare in a way which ensures better outcomes, better experience, and better use of resources.

The programme does not aim to reduce spending on NHS Continuing Healthcare, but to reduce the rate of growth of expenditure. The projection is for spending on NHS Continuing Healthcare to increase by over 20% by 2020/21, or an average of approximately 3.9% per year.