Care Necessities Reviews 

Care necessities (Skegness) took a significant payment to progress a case for ongoing continuing health care for my Father. They visited the care home to gather data which was incomplete and then requested more money to gather additional data that we then gathered and provided ourselves. Then they ceased responding to any requests for a meeting to progress the case and arrange meetings with the appropriate authorities. Simply unresponsive. Repeated messages over several months back to us that the key advocate contact was "busy in meetings" To date, 6 months after the care home visit, they have failed to respond and act at all and data gathered during the care home visit is essentially out of date. Complete waste of money. I would not recommend anyone use their services.

Care Necessities and Karen were consummate professionals in their support and advice. This is an extremely complex arena where the system is set up to defeat the unprepared. I cannot recommend them highly enough and were are so very grateful for helping us to achieve a successful outcome.

I cannot thank Care Necessities enough in their endeavours to help me find justice for my mother who paid fully for her care for over six years when clearly she was ill with severe dementia and appeared entitled to continuing healthcare funding. Sadly our initial advocates did not provide a comparable service. They are very clear about expectations and costs involved for which my brother and myself are very satisfied with during what is a very emotional process.
Colin and Ian

In a word amazing. The support we have received from Steph has been second to none. So thorough and knowledgable. We finally feel that a we have someone that can guide us through the awful process of getting our dear Dad the funding is truly deserves. Having suffered a terrible experience with Compass, Care Necessities have been a beacon of light.

My case is still ongoing with Care necessities, but Steph, Julie and Georgie have been nothing but professional in helping with my husband case, who is unfortunately still in a nursing home, I have been completed overwhelmed with the 'jargon' that is used during this whole process. I think people think they can get away with using terms etc that lay people like us don't understand and that is where Care Necessities step in and guide you through this mine field of letters and numbers and I will be forever grateful to this wonderful team. They are extremely caring towards their clients but they certainly know their stuff and would have no hesitation in recommending the Care Necessities team in Skegness if you are struggling in any way.

I have contacted Steph Ford a few times, for help with mother who recently was diagnosed with alzheimers and had a fall causing a break on her knee, steph helped me get my mum home rather than into a care home for rehabilitation, and has helped with numerous questions on careers jargon, the help I've received has been immense in dealing with situations I had no idea where to start on,
Highly recommended to anybody who needs help with elderly caring options

Starting the process of Local Resolution on our own, after our CCG's DST outcome did not go as we expected for our mum, was like stepping into a minefield of bureaucracy, specialist jargon and detailed processes that would have all but the experts stumped! Thankfully, we were introduced to Care Necessities at this point. From the first telephone call, I could not have felt more supported, reassured and informed, with guidance and transparency and empathy afforded to me at every step of the process - and it is a process! I could never have navigated my way through our Local Resolution Meeting without Care Necessities beside me and I am truly grateful for their input which led to us successfully overturning the initial DST decision and obtaining recognition that mum's condition did represent a primary healthcare need and she was entitled to NHS Continuing Healthcare Funding.

Care Necessities helped support my Grandfather with a CHC claim; we were faced with short turnarounds, thousands of pages of information from the NHS and multiple care homes as well as a belligerent CCG.

Care Necessities and Stephanie Ford *literally* worked night and day to prepare for the DST meeting. They were exceedingly professional and produced evidence backed, logical positions in the DST, which ultimately produced a positive outcome. Without their help, our position would have considerably weaker and I believe that they were the difference in achieving the desired outcome.

My grandfather is receiving one to one care, which greatly increased the monthly cost of his ongoing care. I expect that the fees we have paid Care Necessities will represent a fraction of the ultimate cost to my Grandfathers assets, had we not been successful. We continue to retain Care Necessities for future reviews.

We engaged Care Necessities (Stephanie Ford) to advise and assist us with an application for Continuing Health Care for our father.
They were incredibly professional, as well as being very responsive. They were positively proactive and kept us informed as to progress, and what to expect from the process.
We achieved a positive outcome that would not have been possible, in my view, without their help and guidance. Every member of the team played a contribution, and all 5o a very high standard.
Our advocate, Stephanie Ford, was first class in the DST meeting.
We were so pleased with the help we received that we will engage them again to assist with the 3 month review.

I cannot stress strongly enough how amazing Care Necessities are .
I still remember the day I first rang them, they immediately made me feel calm, and said you have come to the right place. Every member of the team have been absolutely amazing, in supporting us throughout this emotional and difficult journey. All the team are truly committed to helping and supporting their clients. Always upfront and honest in explaining the processes and possible outcomes. Thankyou you all so much for being wonderful people.

In May 2012 our 91 year old very fit, healthy and very determined mother fell and broke her femur.
She was “repaired” in hospital and was making a good recovery when, whilst in a smaller rehabilitation hospital, she suffered a series of strokes that left her paralysed down one side and permanently bedridden.
We found her a superb nursing home. Even so, she hated it as her freedom was lost. However, even though she hated it, she still hung on for over 5 years before she gave up.
A friend had recommended we apply for Continuing Care to help with the cost so we applied. The application was successful.
Over time her health deteriorated. The authority providing the Continuing Care support were supposed to review her case regularly but it took three years before they did. In December 2015, despite her decline in health, they announced she was no longer eligible and funding would stop in January 2016! We immediately informed them we would appeal this decision. We heard no news about the appeal and, despite all this, the funding continued until December 2017 when our very determined mother finally gave up and died.
On advice from the solicitors handling her estate for us, we advised the Authority that the payments from them had continued throughout until she died. It became obvious that they were completely unaware of this. Despite this they stated, in the summer of 2018, that they would claim the considerable sum of money back from our mother's estate.
We sought assistance with the appeal and eventually found Stephanie at Care Necessities. She reviewed our mother's case and was confident that the Authority was incorrect in its assessment.
Our appeal (titled a Local Resolution Meeting) eventually happened in January 2019, over a year after our mother had died and some 3 years since it was first lodged! Despite Stephanie's seemingly watertight case, the appeal was rejected. We launched an appeal to the appeal.
The appeal to the appeal (held under the NHS England banner) took over a further year to happen and was held on zoom because of covid. Again, this appeal was rejected despite the extremely solid case presented by Stephanie.
The next step would be an appeal to the ombudsman which had to be submitted by the end of February 2022.
To our amazement, towards the end of January 2022 (over 6 years from our mother's death), the authority, out of the blue, announced that, after further review, they were dropping their claim on our mother's estate!
Throughout all this, Care Necessities have been stalwart in their support of this case. The responsible Authority had not covered themselves in glory and left us feeling that British justice was on the fiddle, ignoring valid arguments put to them and disqualifying appeals as a result. Thank goodness that common sense eventually came good! Thank goodness also for the help we received from Care Necessities.

I have used the services of Care Necessities twice, the assistance, and support of Stephanie and the team was invaluable to me. I am not medically minded, nor fluent in medical speaking or terminology. Without those skills I knew I could not challenge or engage fully in discussions with the CHC - you do need to speak their language, challenging, and questioning decisions on the same level as them. The funding paperwork, medical reports, and care reports are laborious, and need to be considered with a fine-tooth comb, which Steph and the team dealt with amazingly. Their support to me, and fully understanding the needs of my Uncle was invaluable. The process of challenging the CHC is extremely stressful, frustrating, confusing, and at times seems never ending but Care Necessities alleviate those concerns, and I will be forever grateful for their guidance, support, and professionalism in dealing with my case.

We can’t recommend Care Necessities highly enough. Our elderly and increasingly frail father spent five months bouncing between hospital and respite homes at the end of 2021. It became clear that he needed to go permanently into a care or nursing home. We were told social services could provide us with advice. That advice however was merely consisted of a leaflet and being told to check websites. We quickly realised that we were being directed to the easiest option from the point of view of social services rather than being offered real advice on what might be best for our father in terms of care and financial outlay.

Care Necessities responded quickly to our initial contact with them. They were the first people who really listened to us sympathetically, tried to understand what we wanted and needed, then mapped out our options. They had good knowledge of what was and what wasn’t possible and took time to explain things to us. They presented us with a plan of action that included what support they could provide. It made us feel that we’d made progress in trying to sort out our father’s situation and that we had someone on our side prepared to help us get the right care with the right financial framework. It was a relief to have been able to find and talk to Care Essentials. We would recommend them without reservation. They are excellent and we are really grateful for their help.

I knew off Care Necessities and knew that they assisted people with care needs. But didn't know exactly how, or what.
My mum was 82 yrs, living independently, gardening and baking etc... She became poorly quite suddenly. From there the next 6 months she was in and out of hospital. One infection after the other and each time she got weaker and needed more help. From experience caring for my Dad I didn't trust many people any more. I question/challenge doctors at the hospital, the social workers. At times I was out of my depth. I phoned Care Necessities. Oh my I spoke to a lady called Julie. 2 hours later I put the phone down. The last thing Julie asked me to do was to keep them updated as to what was happening. Julie was like a breath of fresh air! I felt like I could trust someone, that someone was fighting my corner. Julie gave me direction, questions that I should be asking the hospital and social worker. I kept them updated as things were constantly changing with mum. Care Necessities were there every step of the way and they felt that mum definite had a case to get funding from the NHS Continuing health. I wasn't aware there was any funding in this way. Mum was very comfortable financially, so we presumed she would be paying for her own care.
Unfortunately my mum passed away before Care Necessities was formally actioned. I contacted them to inform them and asked for an invoice for what I owed for the work they had done. They informed me that there was nothing owing!!
An organisation that really truly cared and wanting to go that extra mile to help. It's nice knowing that there are people out there on your side and who you can trust. Thank you for all your help and guidance x

After contacting care necessities they were extremely understanding of our circumstances. They made a very stressful and emotional situation much easier to come to terms with and understand. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend and use them again as I was extremely impressed with their knowledge of how the system works. I would like to thank everyone for they're help and support at such a difficult time.
Regards Robert White

Care Necessities should be the first port of call to anybody who is thinking about seeking advice on NHS continuing Healthcare.
They were recommended to us by a solicitor who said they were very methodical and gave sound advice. To engage with them was the best decision we ever made.
Julie was the first person we spoke to and she is a font of all knowledge who was able to guide us through the process. Stephanie was our advocate and she was just amazing... knowledgeable, professional and honest with her advice.
I would recommend this company to everybody and will definitely use them again in the future. Thank you so much! Gill. K.

I contacted Care Necessities after a recommendation and was impressed by their professionalism, knowledge and attention to detail. Their help and guidance was invaluable and I could not praise the service received enough.

I approached Care Necessities when I needed urgent advice in respect of complex issues relating to my husband’s care funding. To me it was a minefield. They are professional, approachable and know the system inside out. I wouldn’t hesitate in recommending them.