• Intermediate care services should be targeted at people who would otherwise face: |
– Inappropriate admission to acute in-patient care; |
– Long-term residential/nursing home care; |
– Unnecessary prolonged hospital stays; or |
– Continuing in-patient care. |
Key Principles: |
• IC should be provided on the basis of a comprehensive person-centred assessment of need, resulting in a structured individual care plan that, where appropriate, involves active therapy, treatment or opportunity for recovery; |
• IC should have a planned outcome of maximising independence and typically enabling service users to remain or resume living at home; |
• IC should be time-limited, usually no longer than six weeks and frequently as little as 1-2 weeks or less; and |
• IC should involve cross-professional working, with a single assessment framework, increasingly integrated professional records and shared protocols. |