ADASS/IMPOWER: The Age of Intermediate Care

The time has come to make a shift into what this report calls ‘the Age of Intermediate Care’.

The pandemic has proved to be a lightbulb moment in recognising this, building on what has been learned over the previous 20 years. For the first time, there is now unanimity on the strategic importance of Intermediate Care across the health and care sector (hereafter ‘the sector’).

However, the importance of this unanimity was underplayed in the white paper2 and has not been properly recognised elsewhere. To capture the zeitgeist, in early 2021 ADASS and IMPOWER collaborated with leaders from across the health and care sector to discuss the future of Intermediate Care and feed into the content of this report.

Over the last year, the benefits of Intermediate Care have been proved beyond question. The case study included in this report showcases a real-world example from Somerset, where it resulted in an 86% reduction in residential care placements, and a 62% reduction in unnecessary admissions. Such examples – and there are many of them – illustrate why the narrative around Intermediate Care has become so convincing.