If someone you love is in a nursing home, there is an NHS payment towards the cost of their nursing that has nothing to do with their savings, their income or the value of their house. It is called NHS-funded Nursing Care, usually shortened to FNC.
It is not enormous and it is not a secret. But a striking number of families either never hear about it or never check that it is actually reducing what they pay, which are two different failures with the same result.
What FNC is, in one line
It is a flat weekly contribution from the NHS towards the part of care-home care that has to be delivered by a registered nurse. It is paid whatever your assets, which makes it different from almost everything else in this area.
What it is worth
From 1 April 2026 the standard rate in England is £267.68 a week. That is a rise of 5.4% from £254.06 the previous year.
There is also a higher rate of £368.24 a week, but it applies only to a shrinking group of people who qualified for the top band before October 2007 and have continued to qualify since. If nobody has mentioned it to you, the standard rate is almost certainly the relevant one.
You may still see £235.88 quoted online. That figure is several years out of date and it circulates widely on social media, which is worth knowing if you are checking your arithmetic against something you saw on a video.
Who qualifies
Three things have to be true. The person lives in a care home registered to provide nursing. They have a need for care from a registered nurse. And they do not qualify for NHS Continuing Healthcare, which is the larger, fully funded route.
Eligibility follows an assessment of nursing needs. It is not automatic and it is not something the home decides on its own.
How it should show up on the bill
This is the part to pay attention to. FNC is paid by the NHS directly to the care home, not to you or to the resident. The intention is that it reduces what the resident or family pays for the nursing element.
What sometimes happens instead is that the payment arrives at the home and the family’s invoice does not visibly change. Not always deliberately, and not always wrongly, since it depends on how the fee was structured in the contract. But you are entitled to understand it.
So ask, in writing: is FNC being paid for this resident, at what rate and how is it reflected in the fees we are charged? Ask for the answer in writing too. A home that is applying it properly will have no difficulty saying so.
How to ask for the assessment
If nobody has assessed the person for FNC, request it. Contact the local NHS integrated care board, or ask the care home or the district nurse to make the referral.
The useful phrase is that you are requesting an assessment of nursing needs for NHS-funded Nursing Care. If Continuing Healthcare has never been considered either, ask for a CHC checklist at the same time, because the two assessments are connected and CHC is worth considerably more.
FNC is not Continuing Healthcare
Worth being clear about, because the two get confused constantly.
NHS Continuing Healthcare is full funding of the entire care package, including accommodation, where someone’s needs are primarily health needs rather than social care needs. It is assessed against a much higher bar and it is refused far more often than families expect.
FNC is the smaller, narrower payment that applies when someone needs nursing input but does not meet the CHC threshold. If CHC is granted, FNC stops, because CHC already covers everything.
If you think the person’s needs are primarily medical, it is worth pursuing CHC properly rather than settling for FNC. Beacon offers free information on the CHC process and Age UK publishes a detailed factsheet on both.
If you are not in England
Care funding is devolved and the differences are substantial rather than cosmetic. Scotland provides free personal and nursing care as flat weekly payments regardless of income or assets, and its capital limits are more generous than England’s. Wales uses a single capital limit and caps the weekly charge for care at home. Northern Ireland runs its care system through Health and Social Care Trusts rather than councils. Everything below describes England. If you are elsewhere, start with Care Information Scotland, the Welsh Government social care pages or nidirect, because the thresholds quoted here will not apply to you.
What to do this week
Three things, none of which cost anything.
Check whether an FNC assessment has ever been done. Ask the home to confirm in writing whether FNC is being received and how it affects your invoice. And if the person’s needs look primarily medical, ask for a Continuing Healthcare checklist.
Where FamilySafe fits
Care funding generates a great deal of correspondence and it usually lands on one family member. FamilySafe keeps the assessments, the contract, the invoices and the written answers in one place, visible to whoever else in the family needs to see them, so the person doing the chasing is not also the only person who knows what has been said.
Sources
- NHS: NHS-funded nursing care
- Department of Health and Social Care: FNC rate announcement for 2026 to 2027
- Age UK factsheet 20: NHS continuing healthcare and NHS-funded nursing care
This is general information about how care funding works, not financial advice. Rates and thresholds change every April. Check the current figures on GOV.UK or with your local council, and take regulated advice before making a decision about a property or long-term funding.
