Withdrawal of CHC funding

[Librarymaid]

My brother, diagnosed with Alzheimers 2011, was sectioned in August, 2018 and was in a psychiatric assessment centre until early December. After appraisal he was moved to a care home and we were told that his CHC funding would be review after three months. About 6 weeks his wife was summoned to a review meeting and I went along for moral support. Along with a member of the care home medical staff and a representative of the NHS, my brother's care was reviewed and about a week later my sister-in-law received a letter confirming he was awarded CHC for 12 months. This was a great relief to her - but short-lived. The next day another letter arrived saying the previous letter should not have been sent due to an 'administrative error' and that a further review would be held 21st February. Some error!!
At this latest meeting a Social Worker was supposed to be present - they didn't show up! The review meeting was conducted with a different NHS representative who belittled virtually everything the Care Nurse said altered the scores upwards from severe to high, or high to moderate, etc. in virtually all criteria, despite disagreement with his statements from myself and sister-in-law, or interventions by the Nursing staff.
What floored me was his reasoning that things must have improved because my brother has had no falls since he's been in the home - my brother is unable to bear his own weight so is mostly nursed in bed with bedrails up all the time - how the heck would he be likely to fall!!!
We now wait to see if this new review will withdraw the CHC funding. Has anyone else been in this situation or been through any sort of appeals process to challenge withdrawal of funding? We are all feeling quite demoralised, we thought the letter that awarded his funding was at least some comfort! :-(

 

[Kevinl]

If he was sectioned from August to December then it must have been a section 3 as section 2 can only be used for 28 days and can't be renewed, it has to be a section 3 comes next if they want to keep him under section, either that or a DoLS.
Anyone going into care from a section 3 should be funded under section 117 funding.
The difference is CHC is funded by the NHS and 117 is funded by the LA so they may want to argue who's budget his care comes from but that's their problem.
Withdrawing CHC is quite common and the logic is that if someone "get's better" in that they become les of a fall risk due to immobility or less challenging as they become less aggressive then they score down in those areas and the CHC can stop.
Someone on here recently did spend £25,000 using a legal company to challenge the removal of CHC and didn't get anywhere other than £25k poorer.
There's a link below to the long running CHC thread which might give you some idea of how other people have fared.
K
https://forum.alzheimers.org.uk/threads/chc-continuing-healthcare-support-thread.86059/

 

[carlton ann]

Although not quite as bad as this, we are going through a similar case with dad.
He was given an initial 3 month award of CHC funding at 50%.
He has had a review of this now and although has scored higher on some, the really high ones have been reduced due to his lack of mobility now and pain control.
We have now received a letter giving him 40%, but this time it is for 12 months

I will not take the challenge to get it increased back as something is better than nothing.

Wish you all the best in which ever path you take