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Children and Young People's Continuing Care Service

The Children and Young People's Continuing Care service follow the National Framework for Children and Young People's Continuing Care (2016).  The Framework provides guidance to determine if a child or young person's health needs require support, over what can be provided by the routinely or specialist commissioned services e.g. Community Children's Nurse, School Nurse, Diabetes’s Nurse, Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service. Our service receives referrals for children and young people who have physical disability, learning disability, and mental health needs, and also end of life needs.

The Children’s National Framework relates to a child/young person from birth up until their 18th birthday. For young people reaching the age of 18 years a different framework is used to understand what additional care is needed (National Framework for NHS Continuing Healthcare and NHS-funded Nursing Care). If your child is near to reaching the age of 18 a member of the adult Continuing Healthcare (CHC) team will be happy to provide guidance with regards to referring into the adult CHC service. 

Initially, to understand if a referral is required to Children’s Continuing Care a multi-disciplinary (or multi-professional) meeting decides if your child has needs that cannot be met by the routine or specialist commissioned services, and requires additional health services to meet their needs. The multi-professional meeting should ideally consist of; a health professional (completing the checklist), a social worker, and an education representative (and anyone who you feel is relevant); as parents/carers you will need to be integral to this meeting along with your child, (as both of your preferences are pivotal). As parents/carers you will need to be fully aware of what Continuing Care is and what the process entails - this should be communicated within the meeting.

It is important that the agencies involved in your child’s care work together, and with you through the process of Continuing Care.

At this meeting a checklist will need completing, which gives a brief overview of your child’s needs. This checklist will give an indication to the Children’s Continuing Care Nurse Assessors within our service, as to whether a full holistic needs assessment is thereafter required (known as a Decision Support Tool or DST), at another meeting. The most appropriate health professional will take the lead in completing the checklist. However, as a service we will help parents/carers and relevant professionals to understand the process of application for Continuing Care at any point of the process.  

If your child has one we will use their Education and Health Care Plan to understand their needs, which is a document based on multi-professional input. If your child is eligible for Continuing Care the support received from our service will be named and described within the EHCP.

A package of care will be discussed with the child or young person (where appropriate) and their family and the best way of managing it is discussed with the family e.g. via a Personal Health Budget.

A Personal Health Budget can be offered in 3 ways:

  • Notional budget – No money changes hands. You know how much money there is to spend, and you say how you want to spend it. The NHS team will then arrange the agreed care and support
  • Third Party – The money is held by an organisation that is not part of the NHS. The organisation supports you to meet your health and wellbeing outcomes
  • Direct payment - You hold the money to buy and manage your own healthcare and support.  Your local NHS team will ask you to show how you have spent the money. 

Parents/carers, professionals and other person's wishing to have more information can freely contact the service for more advice and guidance on Continuing Care. The contact details for Children and Young People's Continuing Care and adult CHC is included below.

Who to contact

Contact Name
Midland & Lancashire Commissioning Support Unit (MLCSU)
Telephone
E-mail
mlcsu.childrenscomplexcare@nhs.net

Where to go

Address
Liverpool

Local Offer

Local Offer Age Bands
Young Adults (16 to 25)
Secondary (11 to 16)
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