The Geographical Allocation of Community Care Resources — A Case Study

Abstract

The paper presents a case study of methods of allocating a given amount of home help resource between a number of geographical areas within a County Social Services Department. Questionnaires were completed for a sample of clients covering such information as:

• i) the type of client,

• ii) the amount of home help actually received, and

• iii) the "ideal" amount of help judged necessary.

Various allocations were presented to the decision makers, ranging from the simple assumption that the number of hours provided to each type of client should be the same throughout the County, to more "sophisticated" allocations which took account of such geographical differences as the level of provision of other support services and the current and forecast population structure.

Although developed within the context of the home help service, the approach is general enough to be applicable to the allocation of other such services to clients, e.g. home nursing.