Continuing care

Continuing care is for children and young people up to 17 with complex health needs that universal or specialist services cannot meet on their own. The local NHS assesses the child's needs against a national framework and, if the child qualifies, puts together a package of care, which can include care at home.

A continuing care package brings a right to ask for a personal health budget Personal health budget NHS money that you help plan and decide how to spend on your child's health needs. Children getting NHS continuing care have a legal right to one, and other families can ask. Read the full definition of Personal health budget , which gives you more say over how the care is arranged. Parents who have never heard the term can lose both money and hours of care, so if your child has high health needs, it is worth asking the NHS team directly whether continuing care applies. It is a different scheme from adult NHS Continuing Healthcare, which a young person moves onto from 18. This applies in England.