ESSENCE CASE STUDY
Help-at-home: economic evidence
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Key Points
KEY POINTS
Help-at-home schemes provide older people with access to a range of highly-valued support and can lead to health and wellbeing benefits.
Help-at-home schemes appear to save local government and the NHS around £1500 per person per year, owing to:
people remaining longer in their homes, rather than moving to care homes;
fewer GP appointments;
fewer hospital admissions.
Benefits of help-at-home schemes might also accrue to volunteers providing support (who are more likely to find jobs after gaining skills through volunteering with the schemes).
Findings from the economic evaluation summarised here are the first to demonstrate that help-at-home schemes also have the potential to offer value for money
Despite the support provided by help-at-home schemes some older people continue to experience loneliness, financial worries and personal care.
Despite economic evidence that help-at-home schemes can be good value for money, many benefits are likely to depend on local infrastructures and how such schemes are run, making it hard to generalise their value.
