Community Health Care in Rochdale Family Health Services Authority

The National Health Service and the Social Services are engaged on a massive transfer of resources in which, wherever possible, care will be delivered to vulnerable patients in their own homes. This paper deals with two pilot medical practices in Rochdale. The needs of patients are considered on a subjective scale in five categories. It was confirmed that there was a consistency of subjective measurement between the nurses involved but there was no relation between these particular measures and the amount of nursing care being delivered. However, there was a strong relationship between age and the probability of being on the nursing care list, with a significant difference between the sexes. The model can lead to the identification of categories of patients who might have slipped through the net and also to estimates of the total home care nursing list in a practice.