20/09/202312/09/2024

What is Clinical Care?

Clinical care is a form of one-to-one nursing care designed to support people living with clinical conditions or physical disabilities. People living with health conditions like Multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s, cancer or stroke, often need specialist support to effectively manage their symptoms, improve their well-being and maintain their quality of life.

Clinical care differs from other forms of care in that it often involves specialised equipment and home adaptations such as PEG feeding, ventilators, colostomy bags and BiPAP machines. In order to provide such specialised support, carers must be expertly trained and experienced in clinical care tasks.

Clinical care could include a range of clinical health needs, including:

RESPIRATORY AND AIRWAY SUPPORT

Oxygen delivery and suctioning
Cough assist working in partnership with physiotherapists
Tracheostomy management
Non-invasive Positive Pressure Ventilation (NIPPV) via masks – CPAP/BiPAP
Invasive ventilation via machines – Nippy

FEEDING AND SUPPLEMENTARY SUPPORT

NGT/PEG/gastrostomy management
Continuous/intermittent pump feeding

ELIMINATION AND TOILETING

Catheter care
Stoma care

MOBILITY

Skin integrity and pressure area care
Assistance with mobility aides to encourage safe moving and handling

Learn more about nurse-led clinical care from Prestige Nursing & Care.

Funding Clinical Care

If you are living with a complex health condition that impacts your life, you may be entitled to Continuing Healthcare funding (CHC), a form of funding entirely managed and funded by the NHS. While CHC funding does not consider your financial circumstances, the qualification criteria are rather strict.

To be eligible for continuing healthcare funding, you must be assessed by a team of healthcare professionals. You will have to go through a two-step assessment. The first step is completing the initial checklist assessment.

This checklist can be completed by a nurse, doctor, other healthcare professional or social worker. You should be told that you’re being assessed and what the assessment involves. After this assessment, you will be told if you are eligible for a full-assessment or if you do not meet the full criteria.

The next stage is the full assessment. A comprehensive assessment tool known as the Decision Support Tool (DST) is used to gather detailed information about your health condition, care needs, and the level of support you require on a daily basis. Through a series of thorough evaluations and discussions, healthcare professionals use the DST to assess various aspects of your physical, emotional, and cognitive well-being to determine your care and support needs.

Once the DST is completed, a multidisciplinary team of healthcare professionals, social workers, and representatives from your Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) will review the information. This team will evaluate your needs based on a set of predetermined criteria established by the NHS.

Personal Health Budgets

If you are an adult eligible for Continuing Healthcare funding, you will be offered the choice of receiving your funding through a personal health budget (PHB).

The purpose of a PHB is to give those living with long-term health conditions and disabilities choice and control over how their funding is spent on their health and care needs. Whether that is in their own home or a residential care or specialist care setting.

The funding is provided by your local CCG and in some instances can be jointly funded with your local authority depending on your care package.

There are options as to how you manage your funding and care arrangements. Learn more about managing your funding here including direct payments, third party personal health budget and notional personal health budget.

Independent Commission or a Fully-Managed Provider?

The Personal Health Budgets introduced in 2013 have allowed people more freedom in choosing their own care services such as commissioning care from an independent carer or using a home care provider.

However, within the current Continuing Healthcare framework, care must always be commissioned first. This means you cannot directly employ your own care. Any care services you choose that are funded through CHC funding must be either commissioned by a CCG or, in the case of personal health budgets, a case manager.

So, if you are considering clinical care at home from a private carer, a residential care home or a specialist home care provider like Prestige Nursing & care, you must commission it first. As of 1 July 2023, services are commissioned by integrated care boards (ICBs) overseen by the NHS on a regional and national basis.

Clinical Care in Your Own Home

Prestige Nursing & Care has provided clinical care to people in their own homes for over 75 years. We are trusted by our clients, their families, commissioning groups and Case Managers nationwide to provide skilled and compassionate nursing care that is focused on improving health and overall well-being – and all in the place people love most, their own home.

We are experts in the specialist care of conditions that impact a person’s ability to live well, including:

Neurological conditions like dementia, Parkinson’s or motor neurone disease.
Physical disabilities such as muscular dystrophy and cerebral palsy.
Palliative care for those who are nearing the end of their life.

Our service is nurse-led and carers are highly trained to provide clinical care and support for complex, terminal and other medical conditions that impact how you live your life. They are supported by an expert, dedicated, registered home nurse who provides unrivalled monitoring and supervision of the clinical care we provide.

With this leadership and oversight carers can perform many delegated healthcare tasks and interventions at home including:

Respiratory and airway support
Tracheostomy management
Feeding support (including PEG feeding)
Stoma and catheter care

Working With Case Managers

We work in partnership with Case Managers, healthcare professionals, families and personal injury lawyers to ensure we have an in-depth understanding of a client’s needs. Our local registered nurse will conduct a comprehensive assessment enabling a bespoke plan of care and support to be developed.

At Prestige Nursing & Care, we have developed strong relationships with many CCGs that are based on a shared goal of securing the right funded care package for our clients. This enables our clients to get the right care, at the right time, for all of life.

We work closely with Case Managers and families to manage complex care cases and ensure the clinical care we provide is personalised, cost-effective and transparent. Our team of advisors regularly support Case Managers in creating, organising and implementing bespoke care packages that meet the individual needs of their clients.