Health chiefs urged to speed up funding for care of children with severe disabilities

Twm Owen, local democracy reporter

NHS bosses are to be asked to speed up the decision making process for funding care for children with the most severe disabilities.

Council social services provide support, and fund care, for children and adults with complex needs but responsibility for paying for care can fall on health boards if their needs cannot be met by statutory or specialist services.

The NHS is expected to meet the costs when a bespoke package of care is required due to the complexity of someone’s health needs and this is known as continuing health care.

Disputes

But councillors in Torfaen have been told disputes can arise between councils and the Aneurin Bevan University Health Board that runs NHS services in Gwent over who should pay, and the board’s funding panel can be slow in making decisions.

Claire Worlock, the council’s manager for children and family services, however said it doesn’t allow bureaucracy to get in the way of meeting a child’s needs.

She told the council’s scrutiny committee: “We don’t let that impact on children and families. It wouldn’t be the case we don’t meet the funding through social care. We make efforts to reclaim that money.”

Jacalyn Richards, the council’s head of children and family services, said the health board’s decision making process can be a “frustration” for council staff.

Timescale

She said: “We have to make decisions within a timescale for the child. We can’t delay making a decision in order for the funding panel in continuing care to make a decision whether it will contribute or not.”

Council staff aren’t always in contact with those who control the purse strings at the health board, said Ms Richards: “We have discussions with health but it might not be someone able to commit that funding and we are then on the backfoot trying to get that money back retrospectively, which I think is a bit of a tension.”

Ms Richarde explained decisions can be required in situations such as a child moving in to, or between, residential placements and their package of care changing which requires the health board to consider what its contribution should be.

Torfaen also employs a continuing care lead, who works across all five Gwent authorities, to identity children who may be eligible for continuing care and support families in making applications and to challenge decisions around eligibility.

Additional support

Ms Worlock said it is also the council’s intention to consider what additional support it can offer those who aren’t assessed as requiring continuing care. She said: “That’s only generally a handful of children who are entitled, what about those who fall below that level?”

Upper Cwmbran Labour councillor Lucy Williams said delays related to continuing care decisions have “always been a huge problem” and said if the “NHS protocol” is too slow “it sounds like it needs more pressure from on high.”

The children and families scrutiny committee will ask Labour-run Torfaen’s cabinet member responsible, Cllr Richard Clark, to raise the issue of the timeliness of decisions with the Aneurin Bevan University Health Board.