Marie Curie response to House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts report on NHS continuing healthcare funding

Simon Jones, Director of Policy and Public Affairs at Marie Curie, said:

“Today’s report from the Committee acknowledges widespread problems in Continuing Healthcare (CHC) and offers strong recommendations for improving the service by ensuring consistency and transparency in how it is delivered across England.

“While this report is a very positive step, we would stress that these recommendations must be followed through to Fast Track CHC for terminally ill patients, through which a growing majority of people on the service receive support. We were pleased to see NHS England Chief Executive Simon Stevens’ commitment to improving NHS data collection on Fast Track CHC, which we have been calling for as a crucial step towards ensuring that everyone receives the care they need and deserve at the end of their lives.

“Our work in this area has demonstrated that the majority of CCGs aren’t gathering basic information about Fast Track CHC, but we also know from our own research that people are dying in hospital while waiting for fast track packages of care.  This is a terrible occurrence that should be avoided wherever possible, so we are calling for Simon Stevens to further require that CCGs gather data on how many people have died before their fast track package of care is put in place.”