Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to allow individuals in receipt of continuing healthcare funding to transfer their funding between CCGs in the event they move home.

Determining which clinical commissioning group (CCG) is responsible for an individual’s care is relevant to broader National Health Service provision as well as to Continuing Healthcare. In 2013, NHS England published guidance on this subject: ‘Who Pays? Determining responsibility for payments to providers’. This includes guidance on transferring funding between CCGs in the event that an individual moves home. The guidance is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/who-pays.pdf

The NHS England guidance sets out that the key element for determining responsibility is identifying the ‘usual residence’ of the individual concerned. This is based either on where the individual is registered with a general practitioner (GP) or, if they are not registered with a GP, the place where the individual is living.

Both this guidance and the National Framework for NHS Continuing Healthcare and NHS-funded nursing care emphasise the importance of ensuring continuity of care when a patient moves.

If there is a dispute between CCGs then CCGs should agree interim measures until the dispute is resolved through their own local dispute resolution process. If the dispute cannot be resolved in this way, then the matter should be forwarded to NHS England.