According to a story from Independent, cumbersome delays and possible funding cuts are severely hampering England’s National Health Service (NHS). These delays are proving very costly for patients with long term diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS).
Multiple sclerosis is a neurological disease in which the insulating myelin sheath that covers and protects nerve cells is destroyed. The disease can result in debilitating symptoms as the nervous system loses its ability to communicate. The disease can be progressively worsen over time, and prompt access to treatments in order to relieve symptoms is essential for slowing disease progression. You can learn more about multiple sclerosis here.
The NHS Continuing Healthcare (CHC) is explicitly intended for patients who will need long term care or are dealing with diseases that limit their ability function normally. Ideally, this is where care would come from for those with MS. However, for thousands of ailing people, treatment has been hamstrung by funding delays, and many people have died waiting to receive care. To make matters worse, the NHS has asked local clinical commissioning groups (CCG) to save £855 million for the CHC and nursing support by 2021.
These cuts do not seem possible unless the number of people who qualify for CDC support is reduced or the care packages available are more limited. Both of these prospects have the potential of worsening the quality of care that patients receive. The report also says that people are rarely informed about the funding and care that they would be entitled to under the program, and the process for obtaining funding is often complicated. Even when the process is completed, the delays are still a major issue. The report found that about a third of assessments took greater than 28 days to complete.
In rare cases, patients have had to wait for a year or more before a decision is made. With many conditions, that is more than enough time for a chronic illness to worsen and kill the patient. Part of the situation is the fact that the CCGs are able to create their own qualifications for those who would use the CHC service. This results in large disparities in the number of people that qualify for in each region. The report calls for a campaign to help inform patients about their options for accessing the CHC and for ‘remedial action’ in CCGs that are making MS patients wait.
