The economic case for a befriending and practical at-home support scheme for older people in Shropshire, England

Our aim for this particular case study was to examine the economic case for a help-at-home scheme focused on supporting older people to live more independently in their homes. For this purpose we sought to evaluate the costs of the scheme and the outcomes it achieved, including those linked to cost savings. While the focus was on assessing whether the scheme was able to achieve potential cost savings from a public sector perspective, and in particular an adult social care perspective, we also evaluated additional social benefits, including those to the individual older people (including in their role as carers for their spouse in some cases) and volunteers. We also wanted to explore the capacity of the project to engage with a process of economic analysis and to present our economic evidence in the wider context of qualitative data about, for example, service user satisfaction.