How to profile the population's use of health care and social care in one district.

BACKGROUND This study describes a method for combining health and social services data on service provision to develop a framework for monitoring eligibility and service criteria as an aid to development and joint care planning in an inner city area. METHODS The population studied was all residents of the London Borough of Wandsworth aged 18 and over in receipt of social services and/or community health services on one 'snapshot' day. Data matching and linkage was undertaken between social services data and community health services data for Wandsworth. Residents receiving social and community health services and joint packages of care were profiled by age, sex, description and intensity of service. RESULTS Community health services input is high among women aged 25-34 and the over-65s. Social services input is provided mainly to the over-65s, who are three times more likely to receive a social service than a community health service. Eleven per cent of individuals receiving a social care package also received community health services. These joint care packages were mainly for home care and district nursing services. CONCLUSIONS This is the first time this technique has been applied to health and social services. The exercise highlighted problems of data quality, indicating the relevance of adopting a person-based system for health in the longer term to obtain a more accurate picture of activity.