ADASS says new research by Nuffield Trust highlights problems with CHC

Responding to the new report by Nuffield Trust – entitled ‘All or Nothing? Access and variation in NHS continuing health care’, ADASS President Jess McGregor said:

“This report highlights the lack of fairness and consistency in who receives CHC, with deep regional inequalities across the country despite CHC being underpinned by a national framework. 

“Our latest survey found 75 per cent of directors of adult social services reported an increase in the number of people no longer eligible for CHC who would have previously qualified for the NHS funded care. We are worried that the NHS, which struggles to move resources away from hospitals, is increasingly balancing its books by taking away care from individual people. This is placing pressure on councils’ adult social care budgets and the frontline adult social care workforce who are increasingly taking on the responsibilities previously delivered by health partners in the NHS, often without associated funding, training, supervision or strategic coordination. 

“But perhaps most worryingly it is placing unimaginable emotional and financial stress on people drawing on care and the people who love them; often at the end of their lives. Too many people, at the times when they need the most support, are finding themselves worried about how they and the people they love will cope. This is unacceptable. 

“This is about our rights to free NHS care. Care people are entitled to but are finding it harder and harder to secure. We have to work together find a different way. We can’t expect individual people to go without what they need because our systems can’t find ways to get the money to the right place.”