Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust is now providing the Wirral All Age Continuing Care Service (including complex care, mental health, and learning disabilities) on behalf of Wirral Health and Care Commissioning.

The Service covers the Cheshire and Mersey ICB, which has a registered population of 334,000. The service is provided for children and adults.

The main purpose of the service is to deliver a service that fully complies with the statutory National Framework in relation to NHS Funded Care. This includes assessment, decision-making regarding eligibility, allocating placements, clinical case management and review for:

  • Continuing healthcare
  • Funded nursing care
  • Complex care packages including palliative care
  • Children’s and young people’s continuing care
  • Specialist mental health care (Section 117)
  • Specialist learning disabilities

The service provides assessment, case management and review including:

  • The administration of referrals
  • Continuing healthcare, mental health and learning disability and lead case management
  • Allocation of care for patients based on clinical need
  • Co-ordination of the continuing healthcare and funded nurse care panel
  • Personal health budget planning
  • Clinical review of continued eligibility for care
  • Annual review of provider delivery

In addition, the service also provides decision making functions as follows:

  • Decisions on eligibility for NHS continuing healthcare and NHS funded nursing care and other joint packages of care
  • Providing fast track eligibility decisions in a timely manner 
  • Consideration of exceptional circumstances in relation to an individual, a Local Authority or other organisational request