The Balance of Care

The BoC was pioneered in the UK by Dr. David Challis and his colleagues at the Personal Social Services Research Unit (PSSRU), University of Manchester. While conventional projections of care needs often assume that a growing population of older persons will demand a proportionately greater number of residential LTC beds, the BoC emphasizes that the need for such beds will be determined as well by supply-side factors such as the availability of safe, costeffective community-based care. Other things being equal, where H&CC options are more accessible, additional older persons will be able to age in place and fewer will require residential LTC.