PROJECT NIHR206126.05
Social care availability varies within regions across England. In addition to local policy making decisions to understand and stimulate a diverse and stable care market (known as market shaping), this variation will be due to economic factors that influence local markets such as: demand, workforce, competition and health care provision. Whilst there is some recent analysis of social care availability and the relationship between health care use and social care use, there is generally little known about i) social care availability at local levels, ii) how social care availability varies with NHS provision, and iii) whether the availability of social care differs according to socio-economic and personal characteristics (e.g. deprivation, ethnicity, urban/rural location).
The primary objective of this study is to assess whether there are disparities in the availability of social care in England. The project will aim to:
Building on previous analyses of markets in social care by the research team and utilising existing datasets linked to local area information on local economic, personal and health care data, we will use statistical analysis to address the aims.
Understanding whether there are differences in access to health and social care across the country and how the supply of both influence one another will inform policymakers about health and social care funding allocations and about local level market development that may be required.
Stephen Allan (Lead), Florin Vadean, Katerina Gousia
