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NHS Continuing Healthcare
Fast Track CHC Explained
The urgent pathway, who it is for, and how it works
What is Fast Track CHC?
The Fast Track pathway provides urgent NHS Continuing Healthcare funding where a person has a rapidly deteriorating condition that may be entering a terminal phase. An appropriate clinician completes the Fast Track Pathway Tool, and the Integrated Care Board actions it urgently, so a care package can be put in place without the Checklist and full assessment route.
Plain English
For families and professionals
England and Wales
National coverage
Registered professionals
Written and reviewed
Fast Track exists so that funding never becomes the obstacle in a person's final phase of life. In practice the delays that do occur are almost always coordination problems: the right clinician, the right evidence, the right route, quickly. This guide describes the system in England. Wales operates its own Continuing NHS Healthcare framework through health boards.
When Fast Track applies
The pathway is for situations where:
- The person's condition is deteriorating rapidly
- The condition may be entering a terminal phase
- Care needs to be funded and in place urgently, often around a hospital discharge
How to prepare
Getting it moving:
- Identify the appropriate clinician who can complete the Fast Track Pathway Tool
- Assemble the clinical picture: recent notes, prognosis and current care needs
- Be clear about the care that is needed and where it will be delivered
- Ask who is submitting the tool to the Integrated Care Board and when
- Keep a record of what was submitted and when
Where people often go wrong
- Waiting for a Checklist when the situation calls for Fast Track
- Assuming someone else is coordinating the tool, the evidence and the submission
- Letting a discharge stall because the funding route was started late
- Accepting silence: an urgent pathway should move urgently
- Waiting for a Checklist when the situation calls for Fast Track
- Assuming someone else is coordinating the tool, the evidence and the submission
- Letting a discharge stall because the funding route was started late
- Accepting silence: an urgent pathway should move urgently
How the pathway works
An appropriate clinician completes the Fast Track Pathway Tool, setting out that the person has a rapidly deteriorating condition that may be entering a terminal phase. The tool goes to the Integrated Care Board, which actions it urgently and puts funding and a care package in place. The Checklist and the Decision Support Tool are not part of this route.
Because the tool is clinician led, the family's role, and the referring professional's role, is coordination: making sure the clinical evidence reaches the right hands quickly and the submission keeps moving.
A social work led multidisciplinary practice
Nellie Supports is a social work led multidisciplinary specialist practice working across England and Wales, operating through a permanent, full-time employed team that has completed more than 11,000 assessments. Our NHS Continuing Healthcare work prepares and presents the evidence of need at every stage of the process.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who can complete the Fast Track Pathway Tool?
An appropriate clinician. If it is not clear who that is in your situation, that is usually the first coordination problem to solve.
Does Fast Track need a Checklist first?
No. Fast Track replaces the Checklist and full assessment route so that funding can be put in place urgently.
Is Fast Track funding permanent?
Eligibility is kept under review and can change if the person's condition stabilises. The pathway exists to remove delay at the point of urgent need.
This guide is general information about NHS Continuing Healthcare in England, not legal advice, and does not create a professional relationship. Nellie Supports provides independent social work assessment, evidence and advocacy support. We do not provide regulated legal advice, and where a legal remedy is needed we will say so and support your solicitor's work.