Some terminally ill patients have faced waits of more than three months in parts of England to discover if they qualify for NHS-funded nursing care, MPs warn today.
A report of the Public Accounts Committee sets out the wide-ranging failures in NHS provision of “continuing healthcare funding.”
The system was introduced to provide nursing care for patients in care homes and living at home – but has become bogged down in red tape amid concerns about its rising cost, the report reveals.
The MPs say that NHS England is putting pressure on local clinical commissioning groups to make £855 million worth cuts in funding – despite the delays.
They say that “too often” care is compromised because patients do not know about the funding or do not get help to navigate the “complicated process.”
In 10% of districts, the average assessment time was more than 100 days while in 2015-16 some 25,000 assessments took longer than 28 days, the report reveals.
And the chance of obtaining an award varies by a factor of more than ten across England, the report says. In some districts 356 awards were issued per 50,000 people while in others the rate was just 28.
Committee chair Meg Hillier said: “Conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease and multiple sclerosis have devastating effects on sufferers and their loved ones. Help with meeting the costs of ongoing care can make a critical difference to their quality of life.
“It is therefore distressing to see the system intended to support such people fall short on so many fronts.
“Oversight of continuing health care funding has been poor and NHS England’s demand that clinical commissioning groups make big efficiency savings will only add to the financial pressures on the frontline.
“Government must step in now to ensure people with continuing healthcare needs are aware of the help available and that those eligible for funding receive essential care in a timely and consistent manner.”
The report was welcomed by a group of campaigning charities, the NHS Continuing Healthcare Alliance.
Chair Matina Loizou, of Parkinson’s UK, said the system was “cruel, unfair.”
She said: “This report is a victory for so many vulnerable, unwell people in England who have been waiting too long – many to the point of breakdown or even death – for their right to adequate care.”
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