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Cross-Sectional Survey of Residential and Nursing Homes for Elderly People: Interim Report

Netten, Ann, Darton, Robin, Forder, Julien E., Baines, Barry (1997) Cross-Sectional Survey of Residential and Nursing Homes for Elderly People: Interim Report. Personal Social Services Research Unit (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:27348)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided.

Abstract

<p>1. The survey forms part of a three part study funded by the Department of Health which is designed to enable the<p><p>investigation of a wide range of issues associated with the current patterns of use of residential and nursing home care for elderly people.

<p><p><p>2. The principal aims of the survey were to provide a baseline description of the current populations of homes and to explore the relationship between the costs or price of care and dependency characteristics of residents.

<p><p><p>3. The survey took place in the autumn of 1996. 673 homes in 21 local authorities participated with 618 homes providing<p><p>information about the characteristics of individual residents. Information was returned about 11,882 residents from a total<p><p>population of 20,106.

<p><p><p>4. In independent residential care 60 per cent of permanent residents were publicly funded, with slightly more than half of these being preserved rights residents in private homes and slightly less than half in voluntary run homes. In nursing homes 29 per cent were preserved rights residents and 45 per cent were funded by local authorities.

<p><p><p>5. Two-thirds of short-stay residents were local authority funded and two-thirds were located in local authority run homes.

<p><p><p>6. The number of residents who were admitted as privately funded and had become publicly funded during the year was very small. Of publicly funded residents as a whole 12 per cent had been admitted as privately funded residents.

<p><p><p>7. Publicly funded permanent residents were significantly more likely to have been admitted from hospital than privately funded permanent residents.

<p><p><p>8. Local authority residents were significantly more dependent than DSS funded residents in residential care, and significantly more dependent than privately funded residents in all settings.

<p><p><p>9. Client dependency had an important impact on the price of residential and nursing home care. The relationship between<p><p>price and dependency depends on the type of home.

<p><p><p>10. Fees in London were more sensitive to variations in dependency than elsewhere.

<p><p><p>11. Once all other factors are allowed for private residential care was more expensive than voluntary provision.

<p><p><p>12. Once all other factors are allowed for prices in homes with a high proportion of privately funded residents are higher than homes with more publicly funded residents.

<p><p><p>13. How the home was acquired had a significant impact on current fees with ex local authority homes noticeably more<p><p>expensive.

<p><p><p>14. The preliminary analyses indicated that London homes were significantly more expensive even after allowing for<p><p>important cost-raising factors. More work is required to investigate the basis for these higher prices.

<p><p><p>15. A variety of hypothesised patterns of activity and relationships which might have SSA implications have been investigated. The initial evidence suggests that there are no immediate concerns with respect to biases in previous analyses designed to feed into the SSA formulae arising from the lack of data about the resident population.

<p><p><p>16. Further work is needed to investigate the effect of variations in input prices but initial results indicate that the ACA<p><p>proposed by the recent review would be more appropriate than the current ACA for the purposes of allowing for regional<p><p>variations in the input costs of residential and nursing home care.

<p><p><p>17. The effect of variations in the geographical distribution of privately funded residents does appear to warrant further<p><p>investigation although the initial findings suggest that the impact may be relatively minor and dependent on local market forces.

<p><p><p>18. Spend-down does not appear to be a pressing issue in the short-term. Further work on the length of stay of spend-down cases put together with future analyses about predictors of length of stay and characteristics of privately funded admissions may help illuminate the long term implications of this issue.

<p><p><p>19. The survey helps to fill in some gaps about the pattern of use of short-term placements but further work is needed to<p><p>establish the numbers of people using such services.

Item Type: Research report (external)
Divisions: Divisions > Division for the Study of Law, Society and Social Justice > School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research > Personal Social Services Research Unit
Depositing User: Robin Darton
Date Deposited: 21 May 2011 01:29 UTC
Last Modified: 16 Nov 2021 10:05 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/27348 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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