Care Home Fees

NHS Continuing Healthcare Funding

NHS Continuing Healthcare Funding is the care provided by the NHS to people over the age of 18 who have ongoing healthcare needs but are not currently in hospital. This may take the form of help in the home but, depending on the recommendations of the assessor, may also cover full-time nursing home care.

The assessment for NHS Continuing Healthcare Funding is a two-stage process. First, you need to request an initial assessment with a nurse, doctor, healthcare worker or social care worker. The assessor will use something called the “Checklist Tool” to determine whether you need to be referred on for a full assessment.

If the “Checklist Tool” indicates that you may qualify, then you will be referred on for a full assessment by a multidisciplinary team of people involved in your care, using the “Decision Support Tool”. This tool helps determine whether your care needs are health-related.

These assessments may be completed in hospital if staff responsible for your care believe you will require ongoing support when you leave hospital.

Care home fee avoidance

You cannot avoid paying care home fees simply by transferring your house into the names of your children or other relations while you are alive.

If you do this there is a real risk that the Local Authority may consider that you have transferred the property to deliberately avoid paying care home fees and will assess you as if you still own the asset. This is known as a “deliberate deprivation of capital”.

There are many reasons why we would strongly advise against transferring your home into someone else’s name. Once the property is transferred to someone else you have lost your asset and the person you have transferred the asset to can do what they wish with it.