Registered Nursing Care Contribution (RNCC)
Registered Nursing Care Contribution (RNCC) is a payment made by the NHS to cover nursing care from a Registered Nurse.
RNCC is only provided if you need nursing care – and if you’re in a care home that can provide nursing care. This can include a residential home if staff are able to provide some nursing care.
RNCC is not the same as NHS Continuing Healthcare.
RNCC rates
England:£108.70 per week for people assessed after 1st October 2007. £149.60 per week for people assesed prior to 1st October 2007 and who had been receiving the high rate RNCC band at that time. (There use to be three bands, but now there is just one.)
Wales: £120.55 per week
Northern Ireland: £100 per week
Scotland: £72 per week (RNCC) plus £159 per week Personal Care Allowance = total £231. The Personal Care Allowance is also paid if you’re receiving care at home. However, if you receive Attendance Allowance, the total RNCC will be less.
These payments are likely to stay the same for 2012/13.
How is it paid?
RNCC is paid directly to the care home and it aims to ‘reimburse’ the care home for any registered nursing care they’re giving you.
If you’re paying for your own care, and your fees are calculated to include all nursing care, your care fees should reduce once the NHS starts paying RNCC. However, many people see no difference at all, even though the care home is obliged to show how RNCC reduces the care fees. It’s always worth questioning this with the care home and, if necessary, with the Continuing Care Department at your local NHS Primary Care Trust. (In Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland this would be at your local Health Board, Health Care Cooperative or Health and Social Care Group.)
When is it paid?
Your eligibility for RNCC is decided when you first go into a care home and you are assessed for free NHS Continuing Healthcare by means of an NHS assessment. You should be assessed for NHS Continuing Healthcare first. Only after that should you be assessed for RNCC – not the other way round.
If your care home cannot provide nursing care, you probably won’t receive RNCC. However, this does not necessarily mean that if you’re in a residential home you definitely won’t get it. What matters is the kind of care you need, not where that care is provided or who is available to deliver that care. Nursing care can be delegated to non-nursing staff, and many residential homes provide what is essentially nursing care in many instances.
RNCC is not paid if you have to go into hospital. (You may still have to pay for your care home place during this time though.)
Tax and benefits
RNCC is a tax-free benefit and is not means-tested. It can also be withdrawn if the NHS decides you no longer need it.
RNCC does not affect your entitlement to Attendance Allowance, however it’s always best to double check your payments as it has been known for government employees to confuse RNCC with NHS Continuing Healthcare and, as a result, stop paying Attendance Allowance.
