The Case for Home-Based Intermediate Care

This report from the Local Government Association (LGA) Better Care Fund Support Programme articulates the benefits, challenges and opportunities of delivering home-based intermediate care (HBIC) by using evidence and learning from 19 health and care systems.

It reveals that effective intermediate care at home aids a faster and more resilient recovery and maximises an individual’s independence to manage their day-to-day activities, which in turn reduces the likelihood that the individual will require long-term care.

And, from a financial imperative, it shows that improving HBIC’s operational performance, i.e. from delayed assessments for long-term care to delays in specialist input or accessing equipment, could reduce length of hospital stays and produce a £3.4bn a year reduction in long-term care spend. This compares with a £15.3bn per year annual spend on adults’ long-term packages and an approximately £27.8bn per year spend on hospital beds.