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 on health outcomes of a reduction in the NHS Continuing Healthcare budget.

NHS England’s NHS Continuing Healthcare Strategic Improvement Programme was launched in April 2017, and 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.

NHS England’s NHS Continuing Healthcare Strategic Improvement Programme will not change the threshold for eligibility for NHS Continuing Healthcare, which is based on a multidisciplinary assessment of needs as set out in the National Framework for NHS Continuing Healthcare and NHS-funded Nursing Care, together with secondary legislation to give statutory effect to the eligibility criteria and the decision-making processes.