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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Targeting, care management and preventative services for older people: the cost-effectiveness of a pilot self-assessment approach in one local authority | | Author(s) | Paul Clarkson, Jane Hughes, David Challis |
| Journal title | British Journal of Social Work, vol 40, no 7, October 2010 |
| Pages | pp 2255-2273 |
| Source | http://bjsw.oxfordjournals.org doi: 10.1093/bjsw/bcq042 |
| Annotation | As social services councils face a more constrained economic environment and as eligibility criteria tighten, the issue of targeting becomes increasingly relevant. This paper presents findings from a pilot project in one local authority that aimed to target access to assessment for older people with low-level needs who would normally have fallen under eligibility thresholds. Self-assessment was used as a tool whereby these older people could identify, with assistance, their preferences for a range of preventative services. Via a randomised design, the study evaluated the costs and benefits, in terms of reported satisfaction, of the approach compared with the usual care management assessment. Although self-assessed cases were offered more advice as to a wider range of preventative services, which generated greater costs, total costs were lower for this group. This cost saving arose from the use of staff with a lower unit cost who also spent less time on administrative duties and gathering information. Satisfaction with self-assessment was comparable to a professional assessment, therefore representing a cost-effective approach. The project offers evidence of how councils can target resources through assessment and how self-assessment approaches may be appropriately configured to offer value for these users whilst also generating resource savings. (KJ). |
| Accession Number | CPA-101126203 A |
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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