Examining the Future for Intermediate Care 22nd January 2013

Professor Pam Enderby and colleagues held a dissemination event to share their findings from the Enhancing the Efficiency and Effectiveness of Community Based Services for Older People Project in Birmingham last week.

Examining the Future for Intermediate Care – Key Questions That Need Asking and Answering

Prof Pam Enderby,¹Dr Steven Ariss,¹ Dr Tony Smith,² Prof Susan Nancarrow,³ Mr Mike Bradburn,¹ Miss Deborah Harrop,² Prof Stuart Parker,¹ Dr Ann McDonnell,² Prof Simon Dixon,¹ Dr Tony Ryan¹, Miss Alex Hayman,¹ Prof Michael Campbell¹

¹ The University of Sheffield, UK

² Sheffield Hallam University, UK

³ Southern Cross University, Australia

 

This paper provides the introduction to the research programme funded by The National Institute Health Research HS&DR of primary focus of the dissemination conference- 22^nd Jan 2013.

The research detailed in this conference is primarily based on a reanalysis of a merged dataset from two Intermediate Care projects   in order to identify patient characteristics associated with patient outcomes. Additionally the impact of different team and staffing structures on patient outcomes and service costs were examined to enable identification of the most cost effective service configurations and change over time with service provision.

Results: Our datasets contained data on 8070 patient admissions from 32 IC teams across England and included details of the service context, costs, staffing / skill mix (800 staff), patient health status and outcomes.

Key Findings:

·         The provision of intermediate care across England is highly variable with different referral routes team structures, skill mix and cost-effectiveness.

·         In more recent years patients referred to intermediate care have become more complex and with more severe impairments.

·         A high percentage of patients referred to intermediate care do not require the service.

·         The best outcomes of persons receiving intermediate care are those requiring rehabilitation.

·         The measures that were using within the studies were found to be reliable, valid and practical and could be used for benchmarking.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Enhancing the Efficiency and Effectiveness of Community Based Services for Older People: a Secondary Analysis to Inform Service Delivery.