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Loading…NHS fees for nursing homes to fund nursing services will increase by 7.7% from 2025 to 2026, the government has announced.
An increase in NHS-funded Nursing Care (FNC) will benefit more than 75,000 residents of UK care facilities, the Ministry of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said.
The FNC is designed to fund services provided to residents of care facilities by registered nurses that include providing care and managing medications, or providing care, including planning, supervision or delegation of such care.
The latest rise following a 7.4% increase last year will mark the standard FNC rate from 1 April 2025 to 254.06 pounds per week from £235.88 per week to £254.06 per week. It will be paid to a relatively small number of residents who received it when the three bands merged in 2007, increasing from £324.50 to £349.50.
Independent Provider Umbrella Care England said this was its 10th year and they worked with the department to ensure that the increase in FNC reflects the rising costs of care that providers face.
“The Threat to the Sustainability of Social Care Nursing”
However, CEO Martin Greene said the 2025-26 increase was a “step in the direction,” but he warned that nursing “sustainability” in a social care setting is under threat.
This is due to an increase in employer national insurance contributions, which are expected to cost £940 million in the UK in 2025-26, and a “reduced wage gap” between nursing home nurses and low-wage staff, resulting in an increase in national living wages.
Care England CEO Martingleen
Green also mentioned “the increasing burden of delegated medical tasks.” Nurses train and supervise care workers to perform health care tasks such as injections.
He said following the rise in FNC, the integrated care board needs to increase the rate at least the same amount to NHS Continuous Health Care (CHC) social care providers. CHC includes full funding for human health and social care by the NHS, because it has “major health needs.”
Without such a rise in CHC rates, Green added, “the challenges of discharge increase as providers are at risk for systems that cannot simply afford nursing care.”
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