Continuing Care
Health
Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire, Conservative)
To ask the Secretary of State for Health
(1) how many patients diagnosed with (a) Parkinson's disease and (b) dementia are eligible for long-term care funding; and how many such patients claim for it;
(2) whether his Department has made an estimate of the number of Parkinson's disease and dementia patients who have funded their own care since 2004.
Paul Burstow (Minister of State (Care Services), Health; Sutton and Cheam, Liberal Democrat)
This information is not collected centrally.
Anyone assessed as having a certain level of care needs may receive national health service continuing health care. Eligibility is decided after an assessment has been made by a multidisciplinary team using the National Framework for NHS Continuing Healthcare and NHS-Funded Nursing Care. The eligibility criteria for NHS continuing health care are not disease specific. It is the extent of the individual's assessed primary health care needs and the care required to meet those needs, rather than the diagnosis, that determine eligibility.