99P–RO–13–000242 Personal Care for End of Life.

Descriptions

There is a requirement to provide end of life personal care to support Service Users eligible for NHS Continuing Healthcare funding, and where the responsible commissioner is NHS NEW Devon Clinical Commissioning Group or NHS South Devon and Torbay Clinical Commissioning Group.Eligibility for CHC end of life care is demonstrated through a rapidly deteriorating condition and where the condition may be entering a terminal phase.Demand for personal care services frequently outweighs available capacity resulting in less than timely responses to people in need of care. Complicated by rural locations across the footprint, providers struggle to recruit, retain and promote staff which in turn further disadvantages people who wish to return home from hospital to live or die with appropriate support, or care for loved ones either in the short or long term therefore avoiding the need for institutionalised care within a care home or hospital setting.The upward trend of requests for care at home, driven by a national agenda requiring providers to ensure care can be delivered closer to home, has forced commissioners to rethink how this crucial resource can be developed in the longer term. It has been concluded through consultation with providers that there currently is limited recognition of the difference between the levels of care provided and the financial pressures experienced as a result of the preceding factors.Analysis by both health and social care organisations has concluded that there is a need to separate the delivery of personal care for individuals at the end of their lives from those requiring care to maintain independence at home. This work tends to be of a higher level of intensity over a shorter period of time. A decision has therefore been taken to tender separately for this support commissioned by NHS New Devon CCG and NHS South Devon and Torbay CCG within the Devon County Council Administrative boundaries. The definition of end of life in this instance is therefore any individual who has been fast tracked as eligible for continuing health care funding as detailed within the National framework for NHS continuing healthcare and NHS funded nursing care 2012.