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 help ensure that dementia specialists are involved in NHS continuing healthcare assessments for people living with dementia.

The National Framework for NHS Continuing Healthcare and NHS-funded Nursing Care sets out the process for determining eligibility for NHS Continuing Healthcare (CHC). This statutory guidance is clear that the multidisciplinary team involved in CHC assessments should include someone with specialist knowledge of the individual’s condition, such as dementia, or have information available to them from the relevant specialists.

It is important that those contributing to the assessment process have the relevant skills and knowledge. To support staff working in health and social care to apply the principles of the national framework, NHS England has developed and published a comprehensive set of online learning resources.

CHC eligibility is not determined by diagnosis or condition. It is assessed on a case-by-case basis, taking into account the totality of an individual’s needs, including the ways in which these needs interact with one another.