Continuing Care

(asked on 3rd December 2015) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether a person applying for NHS Continuing Healthcare support who is judged to be terminally ill and thus entitled to a 48-hour needs assessment by their clinical commissioning group (CCG) is able to claim the costs of any treatment over the 48-hour limit if the CCG does not make an assessment in time.


Answered by
Alistair Burt Portrait
Alistair Burt
This question was answered on 8th December 2015

The NHS Continuing Healthcare (NHS CHC) Fast Track Pathway Tool is used when the individual has a rapidly deteriorating condition and the condition may be entering a terminal phase. The National Framework for NHS Continuing Healthcare and NHS-funded Nursing Care (November 2012 revised) sets out that on receipt of the Fast Track documentation, the clinical commissioning group (CCG) should arrange for the care package to be commissioned without delay.


A person only becomes eligible for NHS CHC once a decision on eligibility has been made by a CCG, informed either by a completed Decision Support Tool or Fast Track Pathway Tool. Prior to that decision being made, any existing arrangements for the provision and funding of care should continue, unless there is an urgent need for adjustment.

Reticulating Splines