Dementia - CHC (continuous health care) Funding

@Santosha12 what kind of things fall under 'nursing' to qualify for CHC funding? I hope you don't mind me asking you. I think nursing, especially in a care home, must be so difficult (and rewarding) and you have my highest respect!! ❤️

Thank you very much Biblioklept; I do not mind at all and it was the most rewarding of all care that I'd provided in my 13 years of nursing, with 3 years solely dedicated to end of life/palliative care, the training for the latter of which I 'self-funded' to the tune of c £2k (absolutely no regret there from my point of view). In addition to the patients I cared for, I also was lucky to be able to provide that care for my lovely mum who passed away on 5th Dec 2022.

If, in my [only] 13 years of nursing (significanly less in duration than many others but only stopped in its' tracks through Covid) , I was only instrumental in securing CHC funding for one patient, I would say, with humility but with some pride - if both can indeed exist alongside each other - that whatever the costs involved in my initial nurse training were, they were not only well worth it for that one patient and their family but all of the patients I cared for, always with diligence and compassion. I can remember them all. That's what I'm 'proud' of.

There are four characteristics which are tested to establish a primary healthcare need which are nature, intensity, complexity and unpredictability. These are each applied to each domain which are, for nursing care, breathing, nutrition, continence, skin, mobility, communication, psychological and emotional needs, cognition and behaviour, drug therapies and medication and altered states of consciousness. I learned these 'inside out' and very many of my patients not only, very sadly, fully met the criteria but were not awarded CHC. It is a postcode lottery. Not trying to make this 'political' at all, but it's something like an increase of 40% since 2021 of folk who do not qualify for CHC.

Forgive my cynicism. I nursed many people with dementia alongside many other co-midities. These included several patients who were bedbound, not just because of dementia but MS, Parkinsonism and other life changing conditions including traumatic brain injury. Most did not qualify for funding, even though they should have.

IF there is only one reason I am 'glad' to no longer be on the nursing register, because of my poor health, it is because of the health inequity that still, appallingly, exists; that doesn't belong in one of the most wealthiest countries in the world. I am, of course, not 'glad', nursing was/is in my DNA and now has nowhere to go.

Sorry - as usual, a lot more information than you asked for!

Social care staff across the spectrum are certainly undervalued and underpaid, most care homes are run as profit making businesses.

The expensive costs are why people who can't self fund can struggle to get their local authority to fund a placement.

Legally needs are supposed to be assessed then finances, in reality local authority will fish for information, plus if someone is assessed as needing carers in and later really needs a care home, the financial assessment will have been completed and the LA will know full well the person cannot pay for residential care.