UK forced to provide or pay for home-care equipment and services:
This article was originally published in Clinica
Executive Summary
Local authorities are from today (April 8 2003) obliged to offer direct payments as an alternative to providing community care, promising greater access to equipment and services. The ultimate aim of the new regulations is to increase hospital activity by eliminating so-called bed-blocking - the bottleneck created by patients awaiting discharge despite often requiring only non-specialist care. Last year saw the creation of a Direct Payments Development Fund worth £3m ($4.7m) over three years to help support the initiative.