.png)
NHS Continuing Healthcare
Is CHC Means-Tested?
The short answer is no, and the difference it makes
Is NHS Continuing Healthcare means-tested?
No. NHS Continuing Healthcare is not means-tested. Eligibility is decided on the person's needs, through the primary health need test, and where a person is eligible the NHS funds the care package regardless of their savings, income or property. The means test belongs to local authority social care, which is a separate system.
Plain English
For families and professionals
England and Wales
National coverage
Registered professionals
Written and reviewed
This single distinction drives more confusion, and more unnecessary depletion of savings, than any other in adult care funding. A person paying for their own care may never have been assessed for the NHS funding stream that does not look at their money at all. This guide describes the system in England. Wales operates its own Continuing NHS Healthcare framework through health boards.
Why the distinction matters
The consequences are practical:
- A person with substantial savings or a house can still be fully funded by CHC if their needs qualify
- Self-funding is not a reason to skip the CHC assessment: money is irrelevant to it
- Where CHC is refused, local authority support may apply instead, and that is where the means test lives
How to prepare
If the person is currently self-funding:
- Check whether a CHC Checklist has ever been completed, and when
- If needs have a significant health component, ask for CHC to be considered
- Keep the care records current: the assessment is decided on evidence of need
- Do not let the funding conversation start and end with the means test
Where people often go wrong
- Assuming savings or a property rule CHC out: they are irrelevant to it
- Confusing the local authority means test with the NHS needs test
- Never asking for a Checklist because the person is managing to pay
- Believing anyone who links CHC eligibility to the person's money
- Assuming savings or a property rule CHC out: they are irrelevant to it
- Confusing the local authority means test with the NHS needs test
- Never asking for a Checklist because the person is managing to pay
- Believing anyone who links CHC eligibility to the person's money
Needs test, not means test
NHS Continuing Healthcare is decided by whether the person's overall needs amount to a primary health need, judged by the nature, intensity, complexity and unpredictability of those needs. Nowhere in that test does the person's money appear. Where the person is eligible, the NHS is responsible for the care package.
Local authority social care sits on the other side of the line: support through the council is means-tested, and a person's savings and property affect what they pay. The two systems are often discussed as if they were one, and they are not.
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
Will the person's house be counted?
Not for CHC. Property, savings and income play no part in the eligibility decision. They belong to the local authority means test, which is a different system.
Is CHC free if the person qualifies?
Where a person is eligible, the NHS funds the care package. That is the point of the funding stream: it follows need, not means.
The person can afford to pay. Should we still ask about CHC?
Yes. Ability to pay is irrelevant to CHC, and a person with qualifying needs is entitled to the assessment regardless of their money.
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.