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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Evaluating the impact of integrated health and social care teams on older people living in the community | | Author(s) | Louise Brown, Christine Tucker, Teresa Domokos |
| Journal title | Health & Social Care in the Community, vol 11, no 2, March 2003 |
| Pages | pp 85-94 |
| Keywords | Primary health care teams ; Social workers ; Interaction [welfare services] ; Living in the community ; Rural areas ; Evaluation. |
| Annotation | Although it is perceived wisdom that joint working must be beneficial, there is little evidence to support the notion, as in this evaluation in a rural county. The study does identify that patients from the "integrated teams" may self-refer more and are assessed more quickly, perhaps indicating that the "one-stop shop" approach is having an impact on the service delivery process. The findings also suggest that, in the integrated teams, the initial stages of the process of seeking help and being assessed for a service may have improved through better communication, understanding and exchange of information amongst different professional groups. However, the degree of "integration" seen within these co-located health and care teams does not appear to be sufficiently well-developed to have had an impact on the clinical outcomes for patients and service users. From the available evidence, it appears unlikely that measures such as co-location go far enough to produce changes in outcomes for older people. If the Department of Health (DH) wishes to see benefits in process progress to benefits to service users, then more structural changes will be required. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-030319202 A |
| Classmark | L5:QM: QR: QK6: K4: RL: 4C |
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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