Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what guidance is issued to NHS Continuing Healthcare decision-makers on assessing complex and high-intensity care needs for people with (a) progressive and (b) degenerative conditions in Surrey.

The Department has provided detailed statutory guidance, the National Framework for NHS Continuing Healthcare, and National Health Service-funded Nursing Care (the National Framework), on the process for determining eligibility for NHS Continuing Healthcare (CHC) which all integrated care boards (ICBs), including the Surrey Heartlands ICB, must follow. It sets out that all arrangements should place the individual at the centre of the assessment and care-planning process.

The National Framework supports practitioners across health and social care to undertake assessments and deliver CHC appropriately. It should be read alongside the national assessment tools. This includes the decision support tool, which aids consistent decision making and supports a multidisciplinary team of professionals to assess an individual’s needs. The National Framework sets out that it is best practice for someone with specialist knowledge of the individual’s condition to be involved in the assessment process. To support practitioners to apply the National Framework, NHS England has developed and published a comprehensive set of online learning resources.