Council helps residents apply for care funding

Herefordshire Council officers say they are working to help people, who have previously been refused financial support for care, access the funding.

Some people with long-term complex health needs can qualify for free social care arranged and funded by the NHS. This is known as NHS continuing healthcare (CHC).

But in recent years, councillors have raised concerns over the drop in numbers of county residents who are eligible for this funding.

Herefordshire has traditionally been among the areas whose clinical commissioning group (CCG) least awards CHC funding to patients.

This issue had been identified as a risk for the council and councillor Nigel Shaw asked officers to comment on this issue at today’s audit and governance committee meeting.

Paul Smith, assistant director for all ages commissioning, said it was quite a high profile risk for the council.

He said the council has recently been successful in achieving CHC funding for two people who had previously had their applications rejected.

Mr Smith said they are also engaging with an external expert to look at another 30 cases in the county.

“Herefordshire has traditionally been in the very low scores in terms of numbers of people who are receiving CHC funding from the local CCG,” he said.

“As an adult social care directorate, we recognise there is a problem.

“Over the last couple of years, we’ve worked progressively with our partners in the NHS and internally with resources to target this particular issue.

“Of course, not only is it a risk to the council, it is also a risk to individuals who potentially are due and entitled to CHC funding.

“And were you not to receive CHC funding when you are entitled, effectively you are potentially losing assets you are entitled to hold onto.

“That’s an enormous legal issue and a big issue for the council and the Herefordshire system.

“In recognition of that we work progressively with the CCG and NHS partners and we’ve had a moderate break through.

“Some cases that were not deemed to be CHC in the last couple of years, we’ve pushed for a review of those and working with our partners those have been reviewed.

“Recently we have two successful reviews where people have been awarded CHC who had previously been denied that.

“That’s obviously incredibly good news for the individuals but also for the council as financially it has a positive impact.”

The council is working with a third party CHC assessor to negotiate and review several cases.

“We’ve selected 30 cases in the first phase. In those we believe we will notify and identify a number of people who potentially should have received CHC funding,” Mr Smith added.