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Health and social care at the end of life

Theo Georghiou, Senior Research Analyst, Nuffield Trust

October 2012

In partnership with

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The study: care at the end of life

• National strategy in England aims to provide people with high-quality services driven by own preferences

• Improving coordination of care across all sectors is important

• Hampered by lack of information about how people currently use different care services

• Data linkage techniques have been developed to look at individuals’ use of social care and health care services

• Study aimed to answer some basic questions about use of local authority-funded social care near the end of life

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The data

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Final year of life: How many people use a social care service?

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Final year of life: How many people use a social care service, by age group?

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Final year: How does social care use change?

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Final year: How does social care use change?

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Final year social care use: variation by deprivation

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Final year social care use: Variation by diagnostic history

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Final year costs: How does social care use compare to hospital use?

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Final year costs by age

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Final year hospital costs by social care use

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Concluding observations

• Local authority-funded social care plays a large role in the care of those near the end of life

• There appears to be a large amount of variation in social care use

• Social care use appears to increase only modestly during the final year, when compared to hospital use

• Higher use of social care services is associated with lower use of hospital care

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