Abstract
Re-ablement is a new, short-term intervention in English home care. It helps users to regain confidence and relearn self-care skills and aims to reduce needs for longer-term support.

Research by the Social Policy Research Unit, University of York and the Personal Social Services Research Unit, University of Kent examined the immediate and longer-term impacts of home care re-ablement, the cost-effectiveness of the service, and the content and organisation of re-ablement services. People who received home care re-ablement were compared with a group receiving conventional home care services, both groups were followed for up to one year.

The study found that:
* Re-ablement was associated with a significant decrease in subsequent costs of social care service use
* Re-ablement had positive impacts on users’ health-related quality of life and social care-related quality of life, in comparison with users of conventional home care services
* Using the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence cost-effectiveness threshold, re-ablement was cost effective in terms of health and social care costs
* The reduction in social care costs was almost entirely offset by the initial cost of the re-ablement intervention. The average cost of a re-ablement episode was 2,088 pounds with a mean cost of 40 pounds per hour of service user contact time.

Recommendations for the future organisation of these services are made in the report. In autumn 2010, 70 million pounds was allocated to NHS Primary Care Trusts to develop re-ablement services, this will be followed by an additional 150 million pounds in 2011/12, rising to 300 pounds million per annum from 2012 to 2015.

Research areas
ill/disabled adults, social care services issues, older people