Using the law to demystify Continuing Health Care practice | Social Work in Health Forum

Most Continuing Health Care (CHC) training is designed and delivered by the NHS. It teaches you about the process of CHC, but it can leave you none the wiser about how CHC really works or how to ensure it is fair.

Nor does it address the vital social justice and ethical issues: why are people being asked to pay for health care that should be free?

In this session, Andrew Reece, BASW England’s strategic lead for Wales and England, will help you understand how to challenge CHC determinations through understanding the legal limits of social care.

The session will cover the mixture of primary legislation and case law that defines the limit of social care that in turn defines NHS responsibilities: this understanding will help you as a social worker to define what care and support you can reasonably be asked to fund and what it is unlawful for a local authority to provide, which is relevant to joint funding as well as fully funded CHC.

This simple reframing of CHC determinations turns everything on its head, puts the power back in the hands of social workers and the people they are advocating for and will enable you to shift to an ethical and empowering model of practice.

The benefits to you and your team include:

More people with free NHS funded care means less people living in poverty

You can make savings to your care and support budgets that stop you having to make dangerous cuts elsewhere

Andrew Reece is the Strategic Lead for BASW England and BASW Cymru. Before joining the BASW England team, Andrew worked for a variety of local authorities as CHC lead, supported the rewrite of CHC guidance by DHSC on behalf of ADASS and sat on a regional CHC disputes panel. His former service met all its savings targets over 8 years by following this model of practice.