FOI 2026/1678

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, please provide the following recorded information relating to NHS-commissioned complex care at home and specialist community nursing services:

1. Total expenditure on complex care packages delivered at home (including NHS Continuing Healthcare (CHC) and non-CHC complex community health packages) for each of the last three full financial years and the current year to date. Please separate adults and children where the data is held.
2. The number of active complex care packages at home as at the most recent date available, broken down by:
   • Adults / Children
   • Broad clinical category where held (e.g. learning disabilities/autism, mental health, tracheostomy/ventilation/airway management, other clinically complex needs)
3. A list of all independent, private or voluntary sector providers commissioned for complex care at home or specialist community nursing packages in the period, including (where recorded):
   • Number of packages per provider
   • Approximate total spend per provider (or top 10 providers by value)
   • Whether provision was via full managed package, spot purchase, framework agreement, or rapid-response/temporary staffing
4. Details of any current framework agreements, block contracts or dynamic purchasing systems for complex home care / specialist nursing / rapid-response staffing, including:
   • Provider names
   • Contract start and end dates (or review/renewal dates)
   • Scope (e.g. 24/7 nursing, paediatric, LD/autism/MH, hospital discharge support)
5. The name, job title and contact details (email/telephone) of the commissioner or team lead responsible for sourcing complex care at home packages and rapid-response nursing support.

Please supply the information in Excel format where possible. If any element is not held in the exact form requested, please provide the nearest equivalent recorded information and explain any exemptions applied. Best regards,

Section 12(1) does not oblige a public authority to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit.

The Freedom of Information Act allows Public Authorities to decline to answer FOI requests when we estimate it would cost us more than £450 (equivalent to 18 hours, calculated at £25 per hour) to identify, locate, extract, and then provide the information that has been asked for.

NHS GM consists of the 10 Greater Manchester localities, Bolton, Bury, Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale, Manchester, Oldham, Salford, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford and Wigan (former Clinical Commissioning Groups), who currently all have their own processes/systems for recording their Continuing Healthcare (CHC) activity, and therefore, documents are held on various data bases.

Due to the volume and complexity and vast nature of the data involved, it would require a disproportionate amount of time and resources to locate extract and collate the data, and therefore, on this occasion it is with regret NHS GM are not able to process this section of your request further.

It is estimated to search, extract and provide the information would take more than 30 hours.

3 hours per locality for Q1,2,3, x 10 localities = 30 hours

On this basis, section 12(1) has been applied, because this would exceed the appropriate limit prescribed in the act.

Although we cannot answer your request in its current form, we may be able to respond to a refined request that falls within the cost limit. You may therefore wish to consider narrowing the scope of your request, for example:

• We may be able to respond to question 1, but by total spend only for all packages not for those just at home.
• We may be able to respond to question 3 with names of the providers of directly commissioned packages of care.
• We may be able to answer Q4 for CHC only and not MH/ LD as NHS GM does not have the details for each LA where we fund 50/50
• Respond to question 5

Please also be aware that we cannot guarantee at this stage that a refined request will fall within the cost limit, but NHS GM would do our upmost to assist you.