Before another long battle breaks out on TP, and before yet another useful and helpful thread is derailed and rendered useless, I offer the following information:
1. Post No. 35 contains an incomplete quote from the updated NF documentation.
It is the Health and Social Care
Act 2012.
It is the
Health and Social Care Act 2012 that is effective from 1 April 2013.
The new Health and Social Care Act 2012 (effective from 1 April 2013) creates
the new NHS framework and structures. It does
not create a new CHC framework. It is the new NHS that is being created.
2. The
policy contained in the National Framework for Continuing Healthcare does not change. The policy remains exactly the same. The updated NF merely combines into one document a lot of the information that was scattered around in umpteen docs previously and that most 'normal' people would never have known about before. (I acknowledge that I may not be 'normal'.
)
What changes are the NHS bodies responsible for the implementation of the CHC National Framework. For example, PCTs disappear; CCGs appear. The words ‘other provider organisation’ appeared once in the 2009 NF; the same words appear more often - six (6) times - in the 2012 NF (revised to reflect the changes in the structure of the NHS brought about by the Health and Social Care Act 2012). The new NHS will be vastly different from the old NHS.
3. I have read the updated NF for CHC.
Differences in policy are not there.
The differences lie in the explanations within it. Those explanations are far better, far fuller, far more user-friendly, not only for patients and their families, but also for the staff who failed so miserably to understand the previous NF.
4. Examples of 'sameness'.
(my highlighting)
The National Framework revised 2009:
Para 54
"In a hospital setting,
before an NHS body gives notice of an individual’s case to an LA, in compliance with section 2(2) of the Community Care (Delayed Discharges etc.) Act 2003, it ‘
must take reasonable steps to ensure that an assessment for NHS continuing healthcare
is carried out in all cases where it
appears to the body that the patient
may have a need for such care’. This
should be in consultation, as appropriate, with the relevant LA."
The National Framework updated 2012:
Para 62
"In a hospital setting,
before an NHS trust, NHS foundation trust or other provider organisation gives notice of an individual’s case to an LA, in accordance with section 2(2) of the Community Care (Delayed Discharges etc.) Act 2003, it
must take reasonable steps to ensure that an assessment for NHS continuing healthcare
iscarried out in all cases where it
appears to the body that the patient
may have a need for such care. This
should be in consultation, as appropriate, with the relevant LA."
Spot the difference between the two paragraphs.
(Not highlighted by me!)
There were many similar requirements in the NF of 2009 that
should have happened but didn’t happen. The words ‘must’ and ‘should’ appeared in 2009 – yet they were not put into effect by those who were charged with the responsibility.
I'm with crazyfish on this debate. The documents are for use
by CCGs from 1 April 2013 - for the simple reason that CCGs don't exist yet, and won't exist until 1 April 2013. All we have now are PCTs. The PCTs 'can' use these far more user-friendly updated/revised National Framework documents immediately. So can we, the people affected by them. Especially as they are far more accessible and readable.
Therein endeth my contribution.
