Intermediate Care

Intermediate Care is a generic term that covers a wide range of services that help prevent unnecessary admission to hospital, or help facilitate early discharge. As such, the term refers to a very important range of services that can help reduce delayed discharges. These services will also improve the patient experience, either by assisting them to remain at home in situations that might previously have led to admission to hospital or care, or by enabling a supported transition back into the community following a stay in hospital.

Definition of Intermediate Care

Intermediate Care services enable people to improve their independence and aim to provide a range of enabling, rehabilitative and treatment services in community and residential settings. The term has been defined as a "range of integrated services to promote faster recovery from illness, prevent unnecessary acute hospital admission, support timely discharge and maximise independent living". (NSF for Older People, DOH, June 2002).

By definition, services will be time-limited and timescales will be dependent on the needs of individuals or patients and the nature of the individual's condition.

A further definition is "those services that do not require the resources of a general hospital but are beyond the scope of the traditional primary care team" (Oxford and Anglia Intermediate care Project, 1997). This includes:

  • Intermediate Care which substitutes for elements of hospital care and
  • Intermediate Care which integrates a variety of services for people whose health care needs are complex and in transition.

It is clear that there is no one definition for all services within the scope of intermediate care. Local agreement on the range of services which are recognised as within intermediate care is recommended for all partnerships. We have agreed a broad definition to assist partnerships and you can download a copy of our Defintiions paper here.

Intermediate Care – Agreeing a Common Definition [30Kb]

Effective Delivery

Intermediate Care services are more effective when planned and delivered in partnership between primary and secondary health services, local authorities, and the voluntary and independent sectors. This whole-system approach to care provision seeks to provide better outcomes for users and carers, whilst also making more effective use of capacity within the wider health and social care system.

What's JIT currently doing to support Intermediate Care services?

We’re currently involved in a range of work to support the development of Intermediate Care services across Scotland. There is a growing network of partnerships developing intermediate care and the JIT intemediate Care Learning network is available for sharing experience and knowledge. The Learning Network welcome new members and submission of reports, papers, links or other details that any partnership in Scotland wishes to share. You can also find out more about our publications and other useful information here. Alternatively you can contact us.

Intermediate Care Demonstators

The JIT network is keen to support the further development of intermediate care services and their contribution to shifting the balance of care. We have recently provided funding support to five demonstrator sites that show where intermediate care services make a significant contribution to delivering against HEAT targets, community care outcomes and partnership objectives.

  • Fife is focussing on extending access to intermediate care services, introducing a pharmacist to the team and developing their workforce through use of the intermediate Care Capability framework.
  • Edinburgh is expanding an in-reach service into acute services to prevent unnecessary admissions, extending the hours of access to this service into weekends and evenings and focussing particularly on people who have fallen or have a diagnosis of dementia.
  • West Glasgow is linking closely with their long term conditions work and developing a model of prevention of admission for people with COPD and dementia.
  • Perth & Kinross are building on established intermediate care structures with a particular focus on provision of services to people with dementia. A signficant amount of the investment will be on education and training of mainstream staff in the management of people with dementia.
  • Borders are also linking closely to their work on long term conditions and they are considering improved services for people with dementia. Expansion of the delivery of intermediate care through day hospitals and day care is planned, including access to support for people out of hours.

The demonstrators are all at different stages of development of their programmes of work, but are working collaboratively with the JIT team to ensure full evaluation of the demonstrators. The outcomes of their work will be shared through this website as it becomes available.