Home care of the frail elderly in the United Kingdom: matching resources to needs

The paper reports the essential features and evaluation of a scheme to improve the effectiveness of home care for the frail elderly. Decisions about resource allocation were devolved to front line social work staff giving them greater autonomy within clear expenditure parameters. More imaginative responses were noted in the management of a number of difficult problems and the results of the evaluation were generally positive. It appeared that the scheme was most cost-effective for the extremely mentally and physically frail living with others and also for the less frail, socially isolated, depressed elderly person.