Case studies & success stories
CHC Fast Track Success Story
We helped with
CHC fast track funding
‘Mrs X’ (for anonymity) was discharged from hospital into a nursing home. However, about a month prior to discharge, she underwent a Checklist assessment for NHS Continuing Healthcare Funding (CHC) but received a negative outcome – indicating she was not eligible for CHC and that she should not be referred for a full assessment. This was despite her doctors advising she had only weeks to live!
Her family disputed the veracity of the Checklist, stating that it was done prematurely and should be ignored. Ideally, in order to get a better picture of her long-term healthcare needs, the Checklist should have been completed once Mrs X was out of the acute hospital setting and had settled into the nursing home.
Following a complaint, the CCG subsequently agreed to undertake a full assessment of Mrs X’s needs. A Multi-Disciplinary Team meeting (MDT) was convened and, following completion of their Decision Support Tool, again found that Mrs X was ineligible for CHC. Her family were aggrieved by this flawed decision, but in the meantime, until an appeal could be launched, were still obliged to continue paying for her ongoing significant care fees out of private means.
Although Mrs X was eventually awarded Fast Track funding some months later to cover the last few weeks of her life, sadly she died shortly afterwards.
Farley Dwek Solicitors were then instructed by the family to appeal the CCG’s decision to refuse CHC Funding and to seek reimbursement of wrongly paid care fees.
After a review of the papers, our specialist Team concluded that Mrs X’s health was unstable and rapidly deteriorating, and that upon discharge from hospital she should have been Fast Tracked for CHC funding in compliance with the National Framework, instead of undergoing a Checklist assessment. We argued that it was apparent to the hospital clinicians that Mrs X had a rapidly deteriorating condition and was nearing the end of her life; the same facts ought to have been apparent to the CCG which should have Fast-Tracked Mrs X for CHC Funding!
Farley Dwek lodged detailed Written Submissions in support of an appeal to the CCG’s Local Resolution Panel (LRM) who agreed that Mrs X did meet the eligibility criteria for CHC, backdated to the date of her admission to the nursing home until she was Fast Tracked a few weeks just before she passed away.
Her family are expected to receive in excess of £20,000 reimbursement for wrongly paid care fees.