Saturday 11 June 2022 11:13 PM Continuing Healthcare crisis: Record numbers of chronically ill patients are ... trends now

Saturday 11 June 2022 11:13 PM Continuing Healthcare crisis: Record numbers of chronically ill patients are ... trends now
Saturday 11 June 2022 11:13 PM Continuing Healthcare crisis: Record numbers of chronically ill patients are ... trends now

Saturday 11 June 2022 11:13 PM Continuing Healthcare crisis: Record numbers of chronically ill patients are ... trends now

Record numbers of chronically ill patients living with disabilities are being denied funding for their care, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

An analysis of official figures shows only a fifth of those with disabling conditions such as Parkinson's disease, dementia and spinal injury asking for Government-funded help are being granted it this year. This is the lowest figure on record, with the exception of the pandemic years when assessments stopped altogether.

Every year about 160,000 people apply for NHS funding called 'continuing healthcare', money available to those with significant medical needs.

Unlike social care funding, arranged for some who need looking after, continuing healthcare is only offered to those in ill health who need regular attention from medical professionals.

A decade ago, 34 per cent of these applications were successful. Today that figure is 22 per cent. Meanwhile, separate data seen by this newspaper reveals a sharp rise in the number of assessments that are deemed to have wrongly decided against funding at a subsequent appeal.

Margaret Copus, from Sussex, left paralysed by a stroke, was denied continuing healthcare for three years before an independent panel overturned the decision. (She is pictured with her husband, Tim)

Margaret Copus, from Sussex, left paralysed by a stroke, was denied continuing healthcare for three years before an independent panel overturned the decision. (She is pictured with her husband, Tim)

NHS England figures, obtained by The Mail on Sunday under the Freedom of Information Act, show a third of appeals heard by NHS health chiefs were successful in 2020/21, compared with a fifth in 2016/17. 

In these cases the local health authority is forced to pay years of interest on backdated payments, as well as reimbursing families for care.

Lisa Morgan, partner at Hugh James solicitors, which specialises in helping families fight for NHS care funding, says: 'In many cases, if [the clinical commissioning group] had made the right decision in the first place, it could have saved itself thousands of pounds.'

The revelations come weeks after The Mail on Sunday told of the heartbreaking stories of desperately unwell people left utterly reliant on relatives, having been refused NHS-funded care. Some have then embarked on the lengthy and costly process of appealing the decision with legal help, to be told months or years later that they should have been granted funding all along.

Record numbers of chronically ill patients living with disabilities are being denied funding for their care, The Mail on Sunday can reveal. (File image)

Record numbers of chronically ill patients living with disabilities are being denied funding for their care, The Mail on Sunday can reveal. (File image)

We reported on one woman who faced a 15-year battle for funding for her husband, despite him suffering advanced dementia which left him barely able to move. Eventually she took the case to appeal, where the independent panel ruled the decision to withhold funding 'unjust' and ordered her local health chiefs to pay it in full along with £13,000 of legal

read more from dailymail.....

PREV Five people die and more than 100 are hospitalised in Japan 'after eating ... trends now
NEXT Health service initiative offers patients a chance to see a GP on the same day ... trends now