Continuing Care

(asked on 25th April 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the effect of external agencies running care packages for those receiving NHS Continuing Health Care on a) the standard of care provided and (b) the consideration of the patient's needs.


Answered by
Caroline Dinenage Portrait
Caroline Dinenage
This question was answered on 30th April 2018

Clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) are the organisation responsible for commissioning care, based on an individual’s assessed needs and providing assurance at a local level that the quality of care meets those needs. Furthermore the Care Quality Commission also has a responsibility for setting the standards for registration and taking appropriate actions if standards are not maintained.

NHS England has a responsibility to assure compliance with the National Framework for NHS Continuing Healthcare, and have assurance mechanisms in place. NHS Continuing Health Care has been part of mainstream assurance processes since 2016/17 by being included in the CCG Improvement and Assessment Framework. NHS England local teams use an assurance tool, Continuing Healthcare Assurance Tool, to assess CCGs’ compliance with the NHS England Operating Model for NHS Continuing Healthcare.

NHS England is working closely with the CCGs to ensure standardisation of the Continuing Healthcare processes which includes the development of tools to support effective commissioning.

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