Who can you take with you to an NHS Continuing Healthcare assessment?
No. 7 in our series of 27 tips on NHS Continuing Healthcare…
In a nutshell, anyone you choose (including you, of course) can represent your relative at NHS Continuing Healthcare assessments.
Some families report being told that a family member must attend alone. Other families report being told that they are not allowed to take a professional advisor with them.
This is nonsense.
It is up to you, as your relative’s main representative, who you choose to support you – and you don’t have to ask the assessors’ for their permission.
In addition, nowhere does it say that a person can have only one representative
The National Framework guidelines (the main NHS Continuing Healthcare guidelines) frequently refer to the importance of family involvement in the assessment process – and the importance of the person being assessed having a representative.
The definition of ‘representative’ in the National Framework is broad – see page 122:
“Any friend, unpaid carer or family member who is supporting the individual in the process as well as anyone acting in a more formal capacity (e.g. welfare deputy or power of attorney, or an organisation representing the individual).”
There’s also nothing to stop any representative and/or family member fully contributing to the discussion during an assessment.
So if you’re told you can’t bring anyone else with you to represent your relative at NHS Continuing Healthcare assessments – or that you (or those you invite to attend with you) can’t speak at the meeting – refer the assessors to their own guidelines.
Tip no. 6: 3 ways to reduce and challenge care fees
Tip no. 8: 3 questions to ask an NHS Continuing Healthcare assessor
3 Comments
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Why am I being told I can only attend attend a continuing assessement meeting rather than the whole meeting.I have LPA welfare and my mother has lost capacity due to alzheimers.she is in a nursing home and has been since april 18 self funded awaiting assessement
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Who is responsible for asking family member to assessment if the patient is under the Mental CapacityAct. I asked CCG if they were responsible for telling me (next of kin) when assessment was to take place and was told it was the nursing homes responsibility. I was not advised by nursing home who I was in dispute with. The patient was assessed without advocacy. Is this right? Is this against the Nhs rules under the National Framework?
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Hi we asked if we could take a professional note taker with us. It was refused – we were told they would take full minutes of the meeting. However that did not happen. They then said the Multidisciplinary Team report was good enough as a record of what took place ??