What do older people expect from health and social care in the community?

Community care is a vital component of care for older people and the need to evaluate the outcomes of health and social care has become increasingly important. Several studies have looked at the ingredients older people consider important for their overall quality of life. Bowling, for example, compared responses from older and younger age groups in a UK national interview survey. Some have argued against the use of self-administered postal questionnaires in an older population. Others have shown that postal surveys amongst older people can achieve high response rates in certain settings, or where the survey is seen as directly relevant to respondent’s interests and concerns. The Royal College of Physicians of London and the British Geriatrics Society recently used the domains for assessment in the elderly recommended by the World Health Organisation to select a set of standardised assessment scales for older people.