Survey of Admissions to Residential and Nursing Homes for Elderly People

<p>During the past few years there have been considerable changes in the patterns of provision residential and nursing home<p><p>care for elderly people. It would be expected that this, together with the assumption of responsibility for assessing all publicly funded admissions by local authorities in April 1993, the incentives to provide care in the community, and the changes in NHS provision of continuing care would have a profound impact on the type of resident being admitted to residential and nursing homes. In order to investigate this, a survey was conducted during the autumn of 1995 of all publicly funded admissions to residential and nursing homes in 18 local authoritiesl. Over a three month period approximately 3600 people were admitted. Information was collected from social workers about 2554 of these.

<p><p><p>The primary purpose of the survey was inform improvements in the Standard Spending Assessment formula which is used to allocate central government funding to local authorities. The data provide an up-to-date picture of the flow of publicly funded residents into residential and nursing homes. All the admissions are to be followed through time to provide information about mortality, changes in location and changes in dependency over time. In addition a cross-sectional survey of current residents in 600 homes is to be conducted in the autumn of 1996. This will focus on the relationship between dependency and costs of care. Together, the three surveys will provide a comprehensive picture of the role of residential and nursing homes in the care of elderly people. In the results reported here the cases have been weighted to provide a nationally representative sample of admissions in counties, metropolitan districts and London boroughs.