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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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An economic analysis of Best Value for discharging patients into community care
— a pilot study of social worker time costs | | Author(s) | Kristin Denniston, Andrew Pithouse, Michael Bloor |
| Journal title | Research, Policy and Planning, vol 18, no 1, 2000 |
| Pages | pp 21-29 |
| Keywords | Discharge [hospitals] ; Community care ; Social workers ; Costs [care] ; Econometrics. |
| Annotation | The Wales Office of Research and Development funded this small pilot study to assess the feasibility of using economic analysis to evaluate different models of joint working in community care. A concurrent time diary method was used to estimate the unit cost of social worker time in the assessment and care planning process in hospital settings, GP attachment, and area-based teams. The results suggested that there are potentially significant variations in work patterns across these settings that may have substantial impacts on the costs, quality and effectiveness of an assessment. Although the findings indicated that hospital social workers may have slightly lower assessment costs and spend more time in direct face-to-face contact with clients and families during the assessment process, GP attached social workers actually spend more time liaising with other professionals, especially those in community and primary care. Although using the concurrent diary method may have higher opportunity costs of social worker time and a lower response rate than a retrospective diary method, the gains in accuracy and information may justify its use in a larger study. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-001025210 A |
| Classmark | LD:QKJ: PA: QR: QDC: WE |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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