FYI - Press Release from the Department of Health in England. The plans, to be consulted on from today, will create consistent access to free continuing care by proposing clear national policies for eligibility and assessment processes. They will also abolish different nursing bands for free nursing care - ending the need for over 130,000 nursing assessments a year, freeing up more time for nurses and cutting down on repeated patient assessments.....
Best wishes
David McDaid
LSE Health and Social Care
Press Release also at
http://www.dh.gov.uk/PublicationsAndStatistics/PressReleases/PressReleasesNotices/fs/en?CONTENT_ID=4136413&chk=VybTtk
The Consultation is available at
http://www.dh.gov.uk/Consultations/LiveConsultations/LiveConsultationsArticle/fs/en?CONTENT_ID=4136175&chk=fOAfTD
Published:
Monday 19 June 2006
Reference number:
2006/0228
The Government is set to eliminate the 'postcode lottery' for NHS continuing care by creating one national system for everyone in England.
The plans, to be consulted on from today, will create consistent access to free continuing care by proposing clear national policies for eligibility and assessment processes. They will also abolish different nursing bands for free nursing care - ending the need for over 130,000 nursing assessments a year, freeing up more time for nurses and cutting down on repeated patient assessments.
It will make the system faster and more convenient for patients and allow for tens of millions worth of administrative savings.
At a speech about the recently published White Paper on community services, Care Services Minister Ivan Lewis said:
"This new system should result in considerable cost benefits in terms of reduction in nursing and administrative activity - potentially delivering 10s of millions of pounds in savings to the NHS and reducing the administrative hoops that service users have to jump through before they receive the care they need.
"This is a sensitive area which affects many vulnerable people, which is why we have launched this consultation today. It is important that everyone has the chance to get involved."
Ann Abraham, Health Service Ombudsman for England, said: "I welcome the Government's consultation on an improved national framework for continuing care. I recommended in my follow-up report in 2004 that the Government should lead the work in establishing clear, national, minimum eligibility criteria which are understandable to health professionals, patients and carers alike. This consultation is an important step towards that, and I look forward to giving my response to it shortly."
As part of the plans anyone needing high levels of healthcare outside hospital would be assessed first for NHS continuing care and, if this were ruled out, they would then be considered for free NHS nursing care.
Ivan Lewis announced his attention to scrap the current costly nursing bands for free nursing care, and introduce a streamlined system, which takes closer account of the needs of the individual. This will cut down on repeated assessments for both nurses and patients.
Since the introduction in 2001 of free nursing care in care homes, 42,000 more people have received a contribution from the NHS for services which they would previously have had to fund themselves. For the majority of these individuals, this was the first time that statutory agencies had been involved in their care planning, enabling the NHS to ensure they received other NHS services (such as continence services).
The introduction of this new initiative extended more services to people but led to the system becoming more complicated, which is why the Government is moving to simplify the system.
Currently 21,000 people receive free NHS continuing care, while around 70% of care home residents already have some or all of their personal care costs paid by the public purse.
The National Framework has been drawn up in consultation with voluntary groups and patient/user groups to ensure that the patient is at the centre of the assessment and review process, and to ensure that the views of patients and their carers are listened to and incorporated into formulating the framework
|