Community care for frail older people: analysis using the 1998/9 general household survey

Successive Government policies have emphasised the objective of caring for older people in the community rather than in residential settings. This paper looks at patterns of care for frail older people living in private households, using data from the 1998/9 General Household Survey (GHS) on people aged 65 and over. The 1998/9 GHS is of particular interest. It is the first GHS data on older people to allow the community care changes of the early 1990s to be taken into account. The 1994/5 data were collected too soon after the changes for their impact to be observed. In addition, for the first time, the 1998/9 GHS contains questions that identify people needing regular daily help, who constitute some of the most dependent older people in the community. The analysis presented here was undertaken in the context of a study of future demand for long-term care for older people by the Personal Social Services Research Unit. A similar analysis of patterns of care was conducted using the 1994/5 GHS (Wittenberg et al. 1998). The study therefore provides an opportunity to compare trends in patterns of care between 1994/5 and 1998/9.